Lost: Outside my Universe and Beyond the Stars
by happy-rea
Summary: Lucy Smith is a geek on holiday in Cardiff, she spent a lot of money at the Doctor Who experience and fainted while walking through the bay. She woke up surrounded by Jack, Suzie, Owen and Tosh. After talking to her Jack agreed that she could join Torchwood but they both agree that she is not allowed to change the future. Three months later, Gwen joins and the show starts.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is is.**

**The big one.**

**The one we've all been waiting for!**

**In all honesty I've been working on this story for years and with all of series 1 complete and my mate Jeremy editing I finally feel like it's ready to be shown to the world. Please let me know what you think.**

**Summery: Lucy Smith is a geek on holiday in Cardiff, after spending a lot of money at the Doctor Who experience fainted while walking down Roald Dalh Plass. She woke up surrounded by Captain Jack Harkness, Suzie Costello, Owen Harper and Toshiko Sato. After talking to her Jack agreed that she could join the Torchwood team. Three months later PC Gwen Cooper starts becoming interested in what it is that Torchwood actually do and Lucy knows that as much as she would like to she's not allowed to change anything.**

**Enjoy!**

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Lucy walked through Cardiff on her Doctor Who tour, she walked down the plass grinning up at the water tower. Her new signed DVDs were in her dalek bag, which was also new. While she had another plastic bag with a few more DVDs and some posters, she had saved for ages and spent loads of money at the shop after the Doctor Who museum, her friends – if you could really call them friends, more like people she knew and got along with - called her a geek and she never claimed that she wasn't. Her was camera out taking pictures of as many of the important shots as she could, planning to fill an entire album with them with her photos next to shots from the episode. Once she got a picture of her by the tower she would go down to the 'tourist centre' and get pictures at the memorial that had been put up there before going to a coffee shop for Ianto.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Her vision went black and she didn't remember collapsing until she woke up with familiar looking faces around her.

"Holy hell" She cursed sitting up quickly, "Sorry." She added "It's just... I am such a big fan, are you filming?" They all looked at each other, "I don't see any cameras." She looked around them trying to spot a TV camera.

"Owen," The leader said, "is she ok?"

"Well she looks fine but it could be concussion. No other symptoms though"

"You call him Owen when you're not filming? Odd" She said grabbing her bag and pulling out her notebook, turning to the first blank page quickly. "Yeah err, you can just ignore the fanfic and can I have your autographs _please_?"

"Fanfic?" The Asian woman asked,

"Err yeah. I mean it's not brilliant stuff just a couple of one shots and I'm working on a full length one. Well I _was_ working on a full length one. Oh and bits of a Harry Potter crossover – I was bored and I probably shouldn't have mentioned that. Just forget I ever said that. But please can I have your autograph?" She said as she stopped rambling and trying not to blush and turn completely pink.

The man in the WWII coat was looking through her dalek bag and staring at the DVDs, "What are these?"

"Signed DVDs; Doctor Who series one to four, the specials and a bunch of classics, and Torchwood 1-3." She replied confused, "Listen if you don't want to give me an autograph that's fine but can I ask one question?"

"Go for it" The tall leader shrugged hoping to learn more about her.

"Why are you filming with Suzie? Are you doing a prequel cause I personally would love to know more of Suzie's role in Torchwood. Plus you get to see more of the others, we all missed them. Especially Ianto, it would mean Ianto was alive."

"What do you know about Torchwood? How do you know Suzie's name? And what do you mean Ianto's dead?"

She looked at the team who were gazing at her, eyes demanding answers. "You are fucking kidding me. This has got to be a joke right, this is one of those hidden camera things to see what people will believe."

"Suzie take her inside." He ordered, "She knows too much and I want to know where these DVDs came from."

"From the shop. I bought them from the shop at the end of the experience, I have the receipt in my bag as well as a couple of posters and books." She continued to look at them "You're not joking are you? Doctor Owen Harper? Toshiko Sato? Suzie Costello? Ianto Jones? Captain Jack Harkness, the Face of Boe?" She grabbed the DVDs out of Jack's hand while he was still in shock, "You can't see these, well Jack can see series one and two, bits of, but no way can you see anymore than that."

"Says who?"

"Who do you think?" She replied raising an eyebrow.

"Why can't we see them?" Suzie asked

"Spoilers." She giggled.

"How do you know those names?" Jack asked, "No one here knows that name."

"This really is real isn't it? Fucking rift." At that point the shock of everything and what had happened caught up with her. Lucy turned completely white and collapsed.

"Shit" Owen cursed.

"We need to continue this story inside. Get her into the hub and one of the cells. Keep the stuff in her bag but don't look at it." Jack said decisively.

Owen picked her up in a fireman's lift, "She's too light Jack." He carried her down the plass and into the hub.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

She woke up in one of the cells her bag in there with her, at first she was confused as to where she was and then she remembered. Somehow she had changed universe and ended up inside the Whovian world. She whooped with excitement at the possibility of seeing all the aliens and maybe even seeing different worlds, allowing herself to think about the good side of things and not what she had left behind.

Ianto grinned as he heard the sounds of joy coming from the cells. "She sounds happy enough, not the normal reaction when people wake up in the cells" He commented, "Do you want me to get her some food? I'm going to order pizza for us anyway."

Jack nodded and Ianto descended the stairs.

"Hi."

"Hi" She smiled at him, "you're really real aren't you Ianto Jones? I've not walked onto an extreme practical joke and a TV set have I?"

"No, this is real. I'm ordering pizza what do you want?"

"Um, ham and mushroom please." She replied, "Soo any idea when I'll be let out?"

"That's up to Jack not me." Ianto said "I don't have any say in the matter, I just tidy up after them."

"Bollocks. You do loads more than that Ianto, don't play yourself down. You might be in the background but that doesn't mean you do nothing, they'd be surprised how difficult it is to live without you. God you're _Ianto_ Jones, do you know how many people love you in my world?" Ianto was bemused but let her continue to ramble. "_Everyone_ who loves Torchwood is a Ianto fan, Jack is in a close second in terms of popularity. It's like the Doctor is my hero, but you, you're so human and..." She sighed and then rested her forehead against the glass door "Listen I don't know how to help her or even if I should, but I promise you when I am free of this I will stand with you every step of the way. If I am in a position where I can help I will help, I promise. You deserve your second chance and I know how much it would mean to you."

He nodded and went slightly pale when her realised who she was talking about, "Thank you" he replied, "I'll order your pizza and add a chocolate pudding as well."

"You really are a lifesaver." Lucy grinned, going back to leaning against the wall the serious moment over. "I've gone a whole 3 hours without chocolate **and** I fainted twice. I need my fix."

He started to walk away but she called him back, "Ianto?" He turned round and raised an eyebrow in question, "Thanks" the dark haired girl said simply.

"For what?" The welsh man asked

"Just thanks" She shrugged and smiled.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

He didn't say anything and left walking back up the stairs to Jack and the rest of the team.

"Maybe we should just talk to her Jack. I really don't think she's a problem."

"She knows things others shouldn't know." He replied

"If it's a TV program like she says then that would make sense. Maybe watch an episode to let her prove it." He shrugged, he knew he didn't have to explain what he had said as Jack would have been watching, he could only hope that he didn't ask what she had meant when she offered to help. "It's not my job to tell you what to do." He added, aware that he had potentially crossed the line.

"No" Jack agreed "it's not." He spoke in a way that meant the conversation was over, Ianto shrugged and left the room, leaving a mug of coffee on his bosses desk.

He continued to watch her before suddenly getting up and saying. "I'm going to speak to her." He passed the rest of the team as he walked down to the cells and he could tell that they were all talking about this anomaly of a girl and what it would mean if she really had come from a different world. Tosh was busy looking at different fantasy websites trying to get as much knowledge as possible, while Owen was moaning about the extra work this was going to give him whilst also making notes about things that may be different in the other universe, both medical and technological. Susie wasn't saying anything but instead was working with more force than was strictly necessary.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"Hi Jack." Lucy smiled at him, "Come to interrogate me."

"If it's true why aren't you devastated?" He asked straight away.

"Because I have nothing left for me anymore, I mean there's Becky, but she'll be fine without me. She has been for a while now." Her voice was serious and she sighed at the thought of what in her original universe. But she shrugged it off and smiled at Jack, her voice became more excited as she continued.

"I've dreamt of travelling across the stars for so many years now Jack. I don't want to run and never look back, although it might sound like it and it's very tempting. I just want to see everything the universe has to offer, I want to look out at the different planets and see different suns in the sky. I want to stand on a planet that doesn't have green grass, or a blue sky. To stand in the middle of a frozen world. To see different constellations. To ride the solar wave and finish anywhere."

Her eyes sparkled and Jack couldn't help but see the similarities between her and the Doctor; the thrill of the universe. There was something else hidden in her eyes as well but before he had time to think about it she continued and it disappeared.

"I want to see cultures that are completely different to mine, to gaze at something no other human will. Or won't for centuries to come. I want to do everything possible. And here, I can't travel across worlds, I know that, I'm only in Cardiff after all. But to know that I still have the chance, no matter how small, of seeing other people from different cultures, the chance to know what thousands, millions, of others don't; to know that when I look into the sky there might be people on other planets doing the same thing and knowing that the universe is teeming with life. Let me stay."

He stayed silent and she continued to plead her case, "I won't tell you what happens in the stories I know for certain, I'll keep the timeline as similar as possible. I swear, I'll let you lock up my DVDs so no one will know your past or any more about the Doctor than you want them to. I want my chance Captain. I _need_ my chance to fly."

"How much of my future do you know?" He asked.

She sighed and shut her eyes trying to work out what to tell him to dissuade him, "Bad Wolf, Gray, Boe. I don't know everything, but I know enough. There are 31 Torchwood episodes, another 10 due to come out in a couple of weeks that I know the rough story line for. I'm not saying I'm going to be the best alien hunter you've ever met or even if I'll be a good one. But I am asking for you to give me a chance and if I suck at it then help me find somewhere to live in this world. Help me find a life. But let me keep my memories. Let me know that I am sharing this world with other species and with people who have travelled through time and space. Please"

He thought for a bit then nodded, "Ok, but I want to see the episodes with me in it, the ones that have already happened in my personal timeline. I'll bring out another safe for you to put them in and I won't know the code. That way no one can see what they shouldn't." He opened the cell door and she smiled at him before saying shyly.

"Err, can I still have that autograph?"

Jack laughed, a proper laugh that was rarely heard. "Maybe when you earn your place here. By the way what's your name?"

She laughed as well and walked out of the cell and with Jack into the main hub. "Lucy" She replied, "Lucy Smith"

"Nice to meet you Miss Smith."  
>"You too Captain Harkness"<p>

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"Should I do the introductions, or do you already know?" Jack asked.

"I know," she replied, "But I don't know all of the hub," She turned to look all around her and saw Myfwany soar above them. "God she's gorgeous, can I meet her?"

Tosh laughed as she joined them, "You don't want to meet us properly but the dinosaur you do."

"Look at her though, she's stunning and real and **alive** in the 21st Century." Lucy replied still following the flight of the Pterdactron.

"Maybe later." Jack said as Ianto appeared with the take out. "Lucy this is everyone, everyone this is Lucy" There was a mutterings of hello from the rest of Torchwood before Jack continued "First we need to work out what we are going to do with you."

"Well I've got nothing apart from clothes on my back and the stuff in my bag. And I can't imagine them being useful, especially as they need to be locked up. I suppose I'll need somewhere to live, a job, a life... everything."

Ianto put the pizzas down on the table as he sat down. "I've got a spare room, you can have that."

She looked up at him, determined to work out if he was being serious. "Really?"

"Yeah, I won't charge you rent not until things get settled down, but you'll have to help with keeping it clean and tidy and the cooking."

"I'm a decent cook" She offered.

Ianto looked at Jack, "Seems to me that's the best option, at least until she sorts herself out and is able to stand on her own two feet."

"I might have some clothes that will fit you." Tosh offered and Susie made a non committal sound of agreement.

"Thanks." Lucy smiled at them, "I mean they probably won't be my kind of clothes, because Tosh manages to look stunning in these dresses and Susie's bigger than me. But I'll take anything offered, I'll go clothes shopping later on in the week to try and get the essentials; underwear, jeans, t-shirts, hoodies - that kind of thing."

Tosh smiled and blushed a bit at the compliment that Lucy gave her but privately agreed that her clothes wouldn't suit the new girl. Jack thought about it then nodded.

"Ok, and I'll give you a job here for now. I figure you're acting pretty well with the whole changing universe thing, that Torchwood might just be the place for you. You can stay and work here for a few months and then I'll rethink it through with you. "

"Thank you Captain" Lucy said sincerely, "it's more than I could imagine."

"I don't want you going out into the field for a while though, not until you're trained with a gun to a decent level at least. So until then you can stay here with Ianto while we go out and help him with the archives."

"Sounds fine to me." Lucy shrugged "I wasn't expecting to be completely thrown into the deep end, although the rift seems to have done a good enough job at that. Am I only helping out Ianto or do you want me to help the others too?"

Jack looked at the rest of the team waiting to hear what they had to say, Suzie was the first to speak.

"I'm part the way through research on the glove so I don't need any help until I've finished that. I want to get that done myself – it's fascinating."

Lucy gave a small nod of acceptance knowing that meant she probably had a few weeks until Gwen joined the picture and she knew what was going to happen.

Tosh on the other hand shrugged.

"Sure you can help me. I'm not sure how much you'll understand of the complex stuff..." She paused for Lucy to respond.

"Almost certainly nothing, but if it helps you to tell me then do so anyway. I don't mind being a sounding board."

"You'll need to be trained up on how to use the system anyway as well as basic things like how to hack into other people's computers, CCTV, Crimnet – which is the police software. And then once you can do that I'll get you hacking into the government. Nothing too complex but enough that you won't need to ask me every time you need something done."

"Only the basic stuff then." Lucy couldn't help but give a weary smile,

"Well it is basic." Tosh said with a nervous laugh

"Only to you Tosh." Jack laughed, "But it is stuff that you'll need to know, Lucy, so make sure you listen."

"Well I'm not sure how much use you'll be to me." Owen admitted, "Unless you want to tidy up after me, in which case be my guest."

"No thanks" Lucy retorted knowing she needed to be straight with Owen from the start. He was a nice guy but completely sarcastic and she planned to make sure he knew where the line was from the beginning. "I've had enough of cleaning up after people to last me a life time. And that was for people I loved as well, not sarcastic doctors with bad bedside manners."

"Well, new girl. I think you might fit in after all. Although if you're going to be helping the tea-boy then you're pretty much the cleaner's assistant aren't you." Owen smirked.

"Hell no! Ianto was introduced as the _archivist_ not tea-boy. He only clears up after you because you're still a petulant child who hasn't learnt to pick up his toys. And my name is Lucy – learn to use it."

The doctor looked like he was going to reply but Jack stepped in.

"Ok children, let's continue this later. Lucy, first you need a full physical. Owen, once you've done it, I want a comparison with our DNA and data to see if it differs, something like that is going to be of vital importance in the future. Everyone else get back on with your work. Lucy we'll do this now and in a few days time just so we can make sure we have the right data as a baseline. The travelling through the rift may cause it to be different to your normal. If the results are too different we'll do another one a week after the second. I don't make any assumptions on my teams health, ok?"

"Is this in the med bay?" Lucy asked slightly nervous, "Because that's not exactly private." She pulled awkwardly on the sleeves of her hoodie trying to hide as much of herself as possible.

"I'll stick up the curtain so no one can see in." Owen said with a shrug, although immediately making a mental note that she was so uncomfortable with the idea - the last time he had seen a reaction like hers at the idea of a medical examination was when he was a student doctor and the patient in question had been self-harming for years. He hoped this wasn't the case now, but he couldn't help but remember how light she was when he carried her into the hub. "Don't worry, it's confidential between the two of us. Jack's the only other person who can get into the medical records and he only does that if it an emergency and I'm unable to. I'm only able to tell him anything if you let me, confidential means confidential."

"I'll only look at it if I absolutely need to." Jack said when Lucy looked wearily up at him, "I've never looked at Suzie's or Tosh's and I've only seen Ianto's once. Don't worry."

"Ok." She took a deep breath, "Ok, let's do it now before I change my mind and decide I don't want to be part of Torchwood after all."

"I'd need your med record even if you decided not to stay with Torchwood" Jack said seriously, understanding how worried she was about this but made sure she knew that there was no choice. "So I could set it up in the real world and so Owen could compare yours with someone else's. We have no information on the difference between worlds, and we need to know of any potential differences just for your safety if nothing else."

"Great. So just to be clear I have no choice about having a full medical." Lucy said sarcastically

"Nope," Owen agreed before leading Lucy into the med bay and putting the screen up so no one else could see.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"So before I start is there anything you want to tell me?" Owen asked Lucy seriously as she sat awkwardly on the side of the bed.

"I dunno." SHe shrugged.

"Nothing you want to tell me? That I'm going to find out about anyway..." He said carefully not looking at her, while he got everything set up.

She stayed quiet and Owen could tell she was trying to work up the courage to try and say something. He sat next to her, putting things back down on the tray and looked at her seriously.  
>"I may be a bit of a sarcastic twat but I'm a damn good doctor - although I prefer it when my patients are already dead. Confidential means confidential, I'm not going to tell anyone what I learn from this, unless it is absolutely needed. That would only be if you were dying or something like that. And I would hope that in those moments you wouldn't really give a shit."<p>

"I've got some scars." Lucy said quietly

"Self inflicted?" Owen replied also quietly, "Nothing shameful in it if they are, we all struggled at some point in our lives." Lucy gave a small harsh laugh.

"Let's just say I didn't have the best upbringing and leave it at that."

"My mum kicked me out on my 16th birthday" Owen said as he got off the bed and picked up the different medical instruments again. "Hoodie off, I need to get your blood pressure and a blood sample."

Lucy pulled her hoodie off and gave him a small smile at the t-shirt she was wearing, the Torchwood logo on top of the TARDIS.

"At some point that's going to stop being odd." Owen commented after staring at it for a second. "What's that blue box?"

"The TARDIS" Lucy replied automatically glad to be back on safer ground. "It's the form of the Doctor's Time Travel machine, got stuck that way '63. It's meant to blend in - but the chameleon circuit is broken. She's beautiful though."

"I'll take your word for it." Owen agreed took her blood pressure. "Right let's start with the basics. Full name?"

"Can this bit be confidential too?" Lucy asked sarcastically, "I don't like it."

Owen just stared at her and didn't say anything, she sighed. "Lucinda Elizabeth Smith." The doctor raised an eyebrow at her name and Lucy pulled a face. "I hate the name Lucinda, makes me think of old and stuffy woman. I refuse to respond to it -my name is Lucy."

He smirked, "Ok, when's your birthday Lucinda? You'll feel a small stabbing pain - but I need to get a blood sample" He held up the needle, and she winced at the thought before looking away and presenting her arm. He was impressed with her ability to not show any discomfort from the pain as he removed enough blood to store and to use for research.  
>She refused to say anything until he sighed, "fine - when were you born, <em>Lucy<em>?" Lucy smiled at him before replying.

"3rd March - hang on what's the date?"

"16th June 2007" Owen said not looking up as he pulled the syringe out.

"Then... 1984. I turned 23 a couple of months ago"

"Do you know your blood type?"

"No clue, sorry." She said shaking her head.

"Any medical issues? Allergies?" He said pulling a thermometer out at quickly taking her temperature

"Nope"

"Hmm... your temperature is a bit higher than I would normally like - but I don't know if that's your normal or not. Are you currently getting over a bug, had a cold?"

"No." She shrugged "Been feeling fine. Apart from the fact I fainted, twice" Lucy added the last bit with a wry smile.

"When?" He looked up from his paperwork.

"Just before I got here. I must have fainted, because last thing I remember I was walking down the plass in my world with a bit of a headache. Then it's black and I'm waking up to see you all staring at me and obviously when I realised this whole situation was real."

"No history of fainting in the past, do you often feel dizzy?"

"I'm normally fine." She said starting to feel uncomfortable again. "Surely it was the effect of being taken by the rift..."

"I wouldn't know." He said returning to her file, "It's not like I've had people to study who have travelled in such a way. And even if I did we've not even heard of anyone travelling like you have from one parallel universe to another, not outside of fiction anyway."

"Mickey, Rose and the Doctor did." Lucy said, "The doctor said there was no risk, only a bit of background radiation. Void stuff - you can see it looking through 3D glasses."

"3D glasses?" Owen thought, "we should have them somewhere, if not they're not difficult to get."

"It makes no difference to my health."

"No but it would be interesting to see, any side effect of the background radiation that you know of?"

"If someone opens the void - the gap between the universes - and I'm nearby I'd get pulled in. Anything else you need to know?"

"Well I'd love a scan of your brain." He pulled out a small machine from a box. "This is an alien scanner. I'll get one of your body, so I can see any old broken bones and such like and then I'll do a more in-depth one of your brain. Only takes a few minutes."

"Great." She sighed, "and then will we be done?"

"Then we'll be nearly done. I'd like to have a look at your scars." He set the scanner running and Lucy stiffened.

"Why?" She asked coldly.

"So that I have an idea of how much damage there was and how much damage would be needed to make things a hell of a lot worse."

"Fair bit of damage and probably quite a lot. There was a knife nearby and toys left on the floor"

"At least tell me where they are, if you are not going to show me. I'd like to know where any potential danger area's are."

"Base of my back and a couple on my stomach."

"I should really see them." He said turning the scanner off and having a look at the information, "You've broken a few bones."

"Left arm twice, right arm once, my right wrist and left leg once and each foot once as well." Lucy said with no emotion, "I used to be quite clumsy although it's got better recently."

"I can imagine. They healed fairly well, although your left arm looks slightly weaker - you're at risk of breaking that one again with a fall if you land awkwardly." He made another note in her file before looking up at her again with his stethoscope around his neck "Well if you refuse to let me look at your scars I'll quickly hook you up to the ECG machine and then once I've done the brain scan you'll be free to go."

"Thank god."

"As far as I can tell you are a healthy 23 year old, although you are fairly underweight. How much do you eat?"

Lucy shrugged, "I dunno, enough to stop me feeling hungry? I've never been a big eater."

"In the same way you used to be clumsy?"

"Hmmm..."

Owen knew that it was always going to be an uncomfortable subject and could that some things were so deeply ingrained into the new member of the team to keep secret that she would never talk about them.

10 minutes later Lucy was finally free of Owen's clutches.

"Thank god for that." She sighed as he removed the screen.

"Well piss off then" Owen said as he started to get on with work.

"No need to tell me twice." She replied jumping down off the bed and going up the stairs as quickly as possible.

She reached the sofa in the main area and flopped down on it. "Tired?" Jack asked her looking down at her from his office before walking down to join her.

"You try being taken from your universe and then being thrown to Owen." She replied briefly shutting her eyes, "It's more tiring than you might think."

"I'll take your word for it." He laughed, "I've told Ianto he can finish in an hour, once the tourist office hours are over. You can go back with him then and I'll give you some money to get clothes."

"Thanks" She smiled at the fictional character standing in front of her.

"I'll get Tosh to get you a laptop so you can have a look at the news and such things to see if you can find any major differences between your world and ours. And I'll go looking for a safe for you to put those DVDs of yours in."

"Thank you Captain" Lucy said seriously, "I have no idea how this is going to work but thank you for letting me try."

"It's a challenge, and I'm not one to back down from challenges"

"I know." She said wryly.

"Yeah I guess you do."

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: So there it is. Lucy has joined the Torchwood team. Just to let you know I've moved a few episodes around and worked out my own calendar of when things are happening.**

**Please feel free to ask me questions in your review and I'll do my best to reply to them, if I don't reply it's because it's a spoiler for the future.**

**I hope you enjoyed chapter 1 and I'll see you again next week for the first part of 'Everything Changes'.**

**Don't forget to REVIEW!  
>Rea<strong>


	2. Chapter 2 - Everything Changes Part 1

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) 1st September (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"The police have found another body" Suzie called from her workstation, Lucy looked up from the paperwork she had been filling out. She was grateful to have something to do apart from the endless paperwork that both Ianto and Jack insisted on but was also aware that this was the beginning of her knowledge of this world and what was going to happen. Plus this was the 3rd body in 10 days so Suzie was obviously getting more and more anxious to use the glove, which meant that at some point soon Gwen Cooper with be joining the team, Lucy still wasn't sure what she thought at that. Jack walked out of his office pulling his coat on.

"Ok team let's go. Lucy you finish that paperwork?"

"Yeah." She said as she grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair in the hope that she would finally be allowed into the field for anything more than a standard weevil hunt.

"Good, you can come with us" he called over to Ianto, "We'll be back in an hour or so, can you get the stuff I need for my UNIT call ready? And make sure the police know we're on the way, I don't want to have to explain things again."

"No problem sir, UNIT files and coffee will be waiting for you when you get back. I'll call the police as soon as you leave"

"You're brilliant"

"Just doing my job sir."

They climbed into the SUV, Owen and Tosh discussing some new medical research that had been discovered, Suzie staying silent, Jack driving and Lucy just staring out of the window. She was daydreaming about the world she was in and the world and the people she had left behind and would almost certainly never see again.

She felt someone poke her and turned to see everyone looking at her.

"What?" Lucy asked confused, playing with the end of her plait as she felt self-conscious.

"Owen asked you a question." Tosh explained.

"Oh, sorry. I was lost in though. What was it?"

Owen was about to speak again but Jack pulled the SUV into an alley and as close to the crime scene as possible.

"OK guys, show time."

They walked in silence towards the barriers and the dead body lying on the ground as SOCO moved away from the scene. Lucy couldn't help but notice Gwen in her police uniform although she made no obvious sign that she knew what was happening, this was it. Cue opening titles, Torchwood had begun.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"There you go I can taste it. Oestrogen, definitely oestrogen" Jack said as Suzie got to work setting things up. "You take the pill, flush it away and it gets into the water cycle, feminises the fish. Goes all the way up into the sky and then falls all the way back down onto me. Contraceptives in the rain. I love this planet."  
>"Well it's one way of keeping the birth rates down I suppose" Lucy replied slightly sarcastically but also catching Jack's eye and then glancing up at Gwen who was watching them from the car park. Jack gave a small nod in reply, he'd spotted her as well.<p>

"It means I won't get pregnant." He agreed "Never doing that again."

The rest of the Torchwood team looked at each other before deciding not to say anything, you could never tell with Captain Jack Harkness whether he was telling the truth or not, and most of the time it was better not to ask. Lucy shoved her free hand into the pouch on her hoodie in an attempt to get slightly warmer and for it to get less wet, staying dry was not an option.

"How's it going?" Jack asked Suzie

"Nothing yet. It's got to connect" The agent replied, "I've just got to feel it"

"Then hurry up and feel it." Owen complained "Freezing my arse off here." He and Tosh were busy filming it while Lucy was in charge of taking radiation readings. She was trying to hold the device in a way that meant her hand stayed in her pocket but after a disapproving look from Tosh about how she was handling the important instruments she rolled her eyes and held it properly, pointing the device at the dead body. Tosh gave her a small smile and then went back to looking at her own instrument.

"I can't just flick a switch." Suzie replied used to Owen's grumpy ways. "It's more like access. It grants me access."  
>"Whatever that means."<br>"Radiation levels rising." Lucy said suddenly as the glove lit up and Suzie took a breath.

"Positions" Jack ordered and they all knelt down next to the body.

"If I get punched again, I'm punching it right back." Owen warned them.

"Just concentrate" Jack said not really focussing on the doctor, "Suzie?"

Suzie moved the glove so it was resting underneath the head of the corpse, the rain around them stopped and the lights got brighter, Lucy was sure that Tosh noticed this and was busy making a mental note to look into it later due to the glint of a puzzle in the Japanese woman's eyes.

The body breathed.

"I was... I was... Oh my God. I was going home." He said.

"Listen to me." Tosh said calmly. "We've only got two minutes so it's important that you listen, ok?"  
>"Who are you?"<p>

"Trust me." Tosh stayed calm, before dropping the metaphorical bomb on the guy, who was about Lucy's age. "You're dead."

"How am I dead?"

"You were stabbed" Owen was the one supplied the information when Tosh seemed unsure if she should tell him or not.

"What do you mean I'm dead, I can't be dead. I'm talking to you."

"We've brought you back, but we haven't got long." Tosh tried to keep the man on topic "I'm sorry but you've got to concentrate. Who did this to you? What did you see?"

"Why am I dead?"

"Who attacked you?" Tosh insisted but Lucy knew they weren't going to get any information out of him, she could see it in the panic in his eyes and the memories in her head of Jack asking him something stupid, so she knelt down next to Tosh and spoke.

"What's your name?"  
>"John Tucker." The man replied "Who are you, why am I dead?"<p>

"I'm Lucy, and the man in the great coat staring down at us is Captain Jack Harkness - he's an expert at this kind of thing." Lucy knew that Gwen had to hear Jack's name. "And I'm really sorry John but I don't know why you're dead. But this is important; you have no idea who killed you, do you?"  
>"I heard a noise behind me." The man replied before realising what Lucy had said "What do you mean he's an expert?"<br>"What do I ask?" Tosh hissed at Jack, "he doesn't know."

"Shhh" Jack replied. "Lucy's handling it brilliantly."

"You got any family?" Lucy asked, trying to keep John as calm as possible.

"Course I have" John replied with a slight scoff before turning serious "I got me Da and a younger brother - Timmy"

"60 seconds" Suzie said but Lucy ignored her focussing on the not-dead body of John Tucker

"How old is Timmy?"

"He's 9. Am I ever going to see him again?"

"I don't think so, sorry John. I've got a sister, she's 7 and I'm not going to see her again either."  
>"Are you dead?" He asked, more curious than scared. Lucy smiled sadly at him and shook her head.<p>

"Just slightly lost."  
>"What happens now?"<p>

"I don't know." Lucy replied honestly, "what do you think happens?"  
>"I dunno, it was dark and there was nothing. Oh my god there's nothing." He started panicking.<p>

"Don't panic John" Lucy grabbed his hand, wishing there was some way they could save this guy

"I'm scared, I want to go home"  
>"Me too. But neither of us are going to be able to so you've got to be strong for Timmy and I'll be strong for my sister, ok?"<p>

John gave a small nod.

"10 seconds"

"Tell Tim he can have my comics." John said, he was still scared but pretending not to be.

"No problem." Lucy replied as the light from the Glove faded, and the rain started again. Suzie lowered John's head.

"I said it was stupid telling him he was dead." Owen commented as Lucy removed her hand from the dead body and went back to looking that the radiation reading.

"Well, you try it." Tosh replied as she stood up.  
>"Like that's going to work. Lucy can do it next time, she's obviously good at it."<br>"Well you guys were being stupid, he blatantly didn't know anything about his murder and if I'd left it up to you guys you only would have scared and panicked him more."  
>"Well I'll agree that Lucy is now our resident ghost whisperer" Jack said with a shrug, "But maybe there is just not a right way to do it." He looked up at Gwen and shouted up at her, "What do you think?"<p>

Gwen's head immediately disappeared and Owen cursed. "Has she been there the whole time?"  
>"Yeah" Jack said.<p>

"She was on the ground when we got here." Lucy added, "So obviously, she's just being nosey and wanted to see well beyond her pay grade"

"Clever way of doing it though." Jack mused, "I want see what else she'll do, but I'll make sure that Ianto has the Retcon ready for whenever we need it. Ok let's tidy this lot and get back to the hub so Suzie can continue her research and the rest of us can get dry."  
>"You think I'm going to stay in these wet clothes?" Suzie argued jokingly<p>

"I think you want to have a look at all the data we collected and see if you can find out more about what happened more than you want to get changed." Jack countered.  
>"I want to know more about why it stopped raining." Tosh added.<p>

"It hasn't" Owen complained, "I'm drenched."  
>"Yes you are now." Tosh agreed as they walked towards the car and let SOCO back on their crime scene, "But while we were using the glove it stopped raining."<br>"Did it darling? I didn't notice, I was focusing more on the fact I was already soaked and not being punched by a dead guy."

"Ok, ok, break it up guys." Their boss laughed, "When we get back to the hub we can get dry and then continue with the rest of the work that we left. Owen, I'd quite like the results of the autopsy you promised me, Tosh keep working on that translator, Suzie see what you can find out from the glove, and Lucy..." He looked at her though the mirror, "what are you currently working on?"  
>"Mainly all the paperwork you gave me." she sighed, "But I've done that now. I wanted to look at the range of weapons we've got, and see what's in the archive. Ianto said he'd try and pull some different files on alien weapons for me and I wouldn't mind spending some more time in the shooting range."<p>

"Gun's aren't always the way out of things." Jack said seriously and Lucy knew he was thinking of a certain Doctor.  
>"I know, but it would be useful to have actual proper files about different weapons we've seen in the past and if different races use them; a proper database instead of relying on Ianto seeing if can find stuff in the mess that we jokingly call the archives"<p>

"You just want the title weapons specialist." Owen scoffed and Lucy rolled her eyes.

"Of course I do. You're the doctor, Tosh is the tech, Suzie deals with bits of everything but is mainly the field specialist plus she's she second in command and she has the glove, Ianto gets us everything we need, makes great coffee and deals with the mess that is the archive and Jack is in charge. I'd like to have my own area of expertise."  
>"You've got our futures."<p>

"_Random_ bits of your future." She countered "and things that may change now I'm here and I could accidentally set different things in action. Plus it's not a great introduction is it? Lucy Smith, knows what's going to happen and can't do a damn thing about it."

"Ok" Jack said stopping the argument that he could he was about to happen, Owen was quite clear that he was not happy that Lucy was allowed to keep her knowledge of the future secret. "Lucy you spend some time practising in the range and then you can start working on those weapons files, but it's going to be up to you to go looking for them in the archive, Ianto only has so much time in the day that he can spare. Keep up working with the weapons and I'll give you the title of specialist, but it'll take a while before you get there. Owen stop riling up Lucy, just because she MIGHT know what happens to you tomorrow."

"Actually to be fair, I'm pretty sure you have a threesome tomorrow." Lucy commented, causing Tosh and Jack to burst into laughter and Owen to pull a proud face about what he was going to achieve. Suzie just stayed silent not looking very impressed with the team.

Jack eventually pulled into the Hub car park, the journey back had predominantly been Owen trying to find out more about his threesome and everyone else, apart from Suzie, teasing him. Lucy was quieter than Jack and Tosh, but couldn't help but be happy at how she had been accepted into this group of people who would all risk their live for each other. She had never had proper friends due to her home situation but it felt nice to have that relationship with someone, it was something she knew that she would never forget and if she did ever manage to return home would make a point of trying to seek out. Although she was pretty sure normal groups of friends don't also have the lives of the rest of the city resting on them or hidden family secrets, but she resolved to never go back to being completely lonely again.

"You ok?" Jack mouthed at her and Lucy smiled at him and nodded, this was going to be even more difficult now she knew what was happening and she was going to have to put up with Gwen but she would cope. If there was one thing Lucy was good at it was 'being fine'.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Ianto was waiting for them as they walked into the hub, holding a tray full of coffee and had some files under his arm, as well as a pile of towels

"Thanks Ianto." Lucy smiled at him as she gratefully grabbed the towel and the warm mug, "It's cold and wet outside."

"Is it, I hadn't noticed?" He mocked, before looking at Jack as everyone else grabbed their respective mug and a towel, "How did it go?"  
>"Lucy is now the ghost whisperer, but he knew nothing about his death. Oh and a WPC watched us, we'll need to keep an eye on her."<p>

"What's her name?"

"No idea." Jack shrugged, "ok, you guys can all leave in an hour. now back to work." Lucy grinned at Ianto as he spoke sarcastically.

"So I'm looking for a curious WPC, well that narrows the field down and judging by Lucy's face she knows."  
>"If you can't find her tonight, Lucy can tell you her name tomorrow morning."<br>"Thanks for the challenge." He raised an eyebrow in exasperation before turning away and Lucy went down to the shooting range, determined to get better at using a gun. Now Gwen was in the picture, or nearly in the picture, she wasn't going to be the new girl and Lucy didn't want any bit of that stigma attached to her. Plus like Owen said Lucy wanted the bragging rights of being the weapons specialist. She wanted an area of her own like Ianto had the archives, Tosh had all the technical stuff, Owen had the medbay and Suzie had the glove and leadership in the field.

It was easy to lose track of time in the shooting range, her focus was simply on the weapon in her hand and the target at the other end of the room. She had decided to be completely comfortable with one gun before she moved onto the next and thought that the best place to start was the generic hand gun used by the police. Her aim continued to get better and stay consistent so she decided to get change the distance between her and the spot she was aiming for, the chances of whatever she was shooting at being the 10m she had been practising at was slim. Lucy took a couple of steps back and started all over again.

Although she wasn't as good as she would have liked at the longer distance it was easier to improve as she felt more comfortable with the gun in her hand. The weight was starting to feel natural at this point and she was used to the recoil which meant that she moved with each shot instead of against it.

There was a sound behind her and Lucy jumped, she had got so used to the echo of the shots that anything else seemed out of place.

"Getting pretty good at that" Jack said as Lucy lowered the gun and took the bullets out.

"I'm not bad." She replied, "what are you doing down here?"  
>"Sending you home. Ianto's waiting for you."<br>"Huh" Lucy shrugged checking her watch, "it's been nearly an hour and a half, I thought you said one hour."

"I did, Owen walked out on the hour, Tosh and Suzie pretty soon after, Ianto wanted to finish what he was doing and you looked happy enough down here. So I figured I'd let you practice some more. You really want that weapons specialist title don't you?"

"What about it? I don't want to train any newbie." Lucy said narrowing her eyes at Jack.  
>"Are we likely to have another newbie?" He asked and she shrugged,<p>

"You seemed quite impressed with that officer earlier."

"Well if we do it'll still be your job. You're the newest, sorry. But get yourself sufficient at three different distances with all of the basic weapons we've got and start working on that database with Ianto and the title's yours."  
>Lucy mentally gave herself a deadline of three months to achieve that goal. "What do you mean by sufficient?"<p>

"Don't know yet. 80% hit rate?"

"Deal" Lucy said quickly before he could change her mind, that was doable, not easy but doable. She was glad to have something to do instead of just being an extra pair of hands around the hub. Lucy had always worked better out of sight of others and with an aim in mind, she may not be completely out of sight in a team of 6 but less people would bother her down in the range even if her main desk was upstairs. She had got used to this being her world now, had almost got used to it, but it was starting to feel like home.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"Why did it have to go to the bloody hospital?" Owen moaned as they all climbed back into the SUV after shoving the weevil in the boot.

"I have no idea" Jack replied, "I'm slightly more concerned with how it got to the top floor of the hospital with no one else noticing. And why that WPC was there as well."  
>"Concussion" Lucy explained, "Hit her head in bar."<br>"How do you know that?" Suzie asked.

"I only remember it because it's the beginning of series 1 and Andy moans just beforehand about CSI being bollocks and wanting to see CSI Cardiff."  
>"Apart from it being odd that you know what happens, I agree with him. CSI Cardiff would be interesting..." Tosh mused.<p>

"You're not the only one who thinks it's - JACK!"

Jack swerved so he wouldn't hit Gwen who was standing straight in their way. "She's going to follow us isn't she?"

"Yup." Lucy said with a slight sense of cheer and annoyance in her voice.

"So this is the first episode then?"" Jack aid changing the conversation.

"Yeah, started at the same time as the beginning of series three of Doctor Who. Although we've got about half a year before we catch up to that. Series 3 happens on Earth over four or five days, if that. Starts a couple of days before election day." Lucy said looking out of the window, thinking about how Saxon was already on earth and making plans.

"While that is completely useless, can we please focus more on the fact that there is a police car following us." Owen said looking out the back window

"Probably a good idea." Suzie and Tosh agreed.

"Ok, Ianto?" Jack said through his ear piece.

"I'm here, what do you need?" Ianto replied.

"Can you meet us at the plass? I'm going to drive the SUV up there so when our nosey officer follows us we'll all disappear on the lift."  
>"No problem, I presume you want me to drive the SUV down to the car park."<p>

"You read my mind."  
>"I do my job." Ianto said. "I've found out all I need to know about WPC Gwen Cooper. I'll have it on your desk to read when you get back."<br>"Brilliant. Thanks Ianto." He glanced at the rest of the team. "Ok when we walk out of this car we aren't going to talk, we're just going to look impressive and walk over to the lift. I want to see what she does."

They talked about nothing in particular as Jack drove the car through Cardiff city centre and down to the bay. As predicted Gwen was just behind them and they all heard her shout for Torchwood to stop, but they simply continued to walk away from her and onto the entrance stone. It was a bit of a tight fit but they were all safely out of sight.

"She does look stupid doesn't she" Owen commented as Gwen started looking around the water feature, trying to see how five people had simply disappeared.

After they watched Gwen get harassed by a parking officer to move her police car Jack allowed the stone to fall and the team lowered into the hub.

Jack started giving orders straight away. "Ianto keep an eye on her and police records, she's going to do all she can to find us. Humans with a puzzle are like dogs with a bone, Tosh can you make sure they don't know about the dead porter, make it look like a suicide or something."  
>"No problem." Tosh replied as she sat down on her chair and turned on her computer, "I'll have someone say they saw him leave as well. "<p>

"Brilliant, sometimes I worry that you're getting too good at hiding bodies. I wouldn't want to get on your bad side. Everyone else I've got nothing in particular that needs doing so get on with your own projects and all the normal paperwork. Oh and on that note Ianto what did you do with the weevil?"

"I put it in the cells, Owen's been talking about getting a pet weevil for a while thought he might want this one. It obviously likes doctors."

"Oh ha ha very funny." Owen replied sarcastically as he walked past the desks to his area "Although actually that's useful, thanks tea boy. She needs a name though..." Owen pretended to think before giving an evil grin, "I know who she reminds me of, my lovely mother - Janet."  
>"Janet the weevil?" Tosh asked with a slight laugh<p>

"Yeah, why not?"  
>"Janet it is then." Jack agreed, "and for obvious reasons try not to get mauled when you go down there."<p>

"I'll do my best." the doctor replied, sarcasm dripping from every word.

Lucy laughed at the banter between the group before sitting down at her own computer and glancing at Tosh's written instructions she hacked into Crimnet.

"You're getting better at that." Tosh commented looking over from her desk.  
>"I think so" Lucy replied with a slight smile.<p>

"I mean it still took you longer than needed, and you still need my cheat sheet." She smirked, "But you're definitely improving."

"I know." She couldn't help but be sarcastic in her response to the Asian woman. "One day I'll be able to hack into the police with no help in only a couple of minutes. And then you can throw me a party because I'll be all grown up." Tosh gave a small laugh,

"And then I'll get you hacking into the government properly. Honestly, you've been with Torchwood for two and a half months and it still takes you five minutes to get into the police servers. Technology is not your thing is it?"

"Nope." She sighed, "never has been really. I can cope with a phone and basic computer stuff. But it turns out hacking is above me."

"You'll get there." Tosh turned back to look at her screen, "One day." She added, "I might even buy you a cake."

"I can't wait" Lucy rolled her eyes but stayed focused on the screen, searching for any information about John Tucker. She needed to find a reason for knowing him and calling his family to express her sympathies and to pass on his message about giving his comics to his kid brother. It didn't take long until she found what she was looking for, John Tucker was a third year student at Cardiff University.

"What are you looking for?" Suzie asked and Lucy made notes of the relevant information before searching for his facebook, it was amazing how useful that site was for finding out about people.

"Information on John Tucker" Lucy replied not looking across as she continued to jot down anything useful. "I promised him I'd let his brother know he could keep him comics. But I can hardly turn up on the doorstep and say his animated dead body told me that can I?"

"It's not an animated dead body." Suzie complained, "He was alive for those two minutes"  
>"Except he wasn't alive because he was using your life force, needed your help whatever." Lucy finally looked up, her and Suzie had had this argument a few times. She was all for locking the glove away but Suzie wanted to know more, and as Jack was interested he allowed the research to continue, albeit slower than Suzie was happy about. Lucy had been the only person that hadn't tried the glove, Owen refused to let her try on medical grounds citing that the danger involved for Lucy was too high. It relied on a connection between the user and the body and Lucy was from somewhere completely alien, too much could go wrong.<p>

"We brought him back to life. I'm not saying it doesn't matter who he was, but we only went to the body for research."

"The point is Suzie that he was dead, we may have brought him back to life but some bastard killed him and we used his body and his death, and it matters because I held his hand as he died again."

"He was dead anyway he didn't die again. What does it matter if it helps us in learning more about how the glove works. Some people leave their bodies to science and they get used for research and this is so much more important."  
>"If you're claiming we brought him back to life, then it's fully feasible to say he died again. It matters because it wasn't his choice. He had been stabbed in the back on his way back home, probably thinking about work or dinner or normal human things and he was stabbed. Whoever did that took his life, and hopefully the police will find out who it was and they'll be punished. But we used his death."<br>"We tried to find out who killed him, he didn't know."  
>"We still used something that wasn't ours Suzie, he was dead and we brought his soul back, or whatever. But however we did it and whatever he was, doesn't change the fact that he asked me to make sure his kid brother got his comics." Lucy sighed and took a deep breath before talking again. "I understand why we're going to disagree on this but all I can think about is his family. I've got no one in this world and I left only a few people in mine, I have no clue what they think has happened to me. He's got a younger brother whose world has just been destroyed, I just want to make sure that little boy has something of his brother to hold onto. I just... I know this isn't how Torchwood normally works, but I think this is something I need to do."<p>

"Well stop preaching at us and get on with it then." Suzie said with a shrug. Lucy sighed and typed the number into her phone. She had no idea what she was going to say or how she was going to say it, but by the time she finished the conversation Tim would have his brother's old comic.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Lucy felt emotionally exhausted when she got off the phone, it had taken a while to persuade John's father that she was a university friend, the information Tosh had found on John Tucker was invaluable. The dad had promised to pass the message on to Tim, and was grateful for the phone call and had even gone as far as inviting her to the funeral when it happened.  
>It had turned dark while Lucy had been speaking to Mr Tucker, and she walked back to the main area of the hub to find the rest of the team looking at footage from a CCTV camera of Rould Dahl Plass, Gwen was standing around inspecting the stones.<p>

"How long has she been there?"  
>"About 10 minutes," Jack replied, "how did the phone call go?"<br>"As well as it could" She shrugged, "I'm not totally sure he believed me but he was happy to speak to anyone about his son."

"Well, let's keep an eye on PC Gwen Cooper but get back to work. Lucy can you get started on the weapons database you've been talking about? Ianto has found you loads of forms and files in the archives for you to start with. He's put them on your desk"  
>"No problem"<p>

"Ianto, I know it looks fine but I want this hub spotless, just in case she does get in. It needs to look like the perfect underground alien hunting base." Ianto nodded "Suzie, keep working on the glove and the knife, Tosh if you could try and get that new translation software from UNIT that would be brilliant and Owen I need you to actually complete your paperwork."

They all got on with their assigned jobs with little moaning, everyone except Owen, but he moaned about everything anyway. The work might sometimes be tedious but Torchwood was one of the best jobs in the world.

Lucy looked at the stack of papers on her desk, some looking like they dated back to when Torchwood first started. She may have mentioned the idea last night but that didn't mean she had any idea where to start. Eventually she figured that the best thing to do would be to read through all of them and find any links between the different weapons. Lucy knew that Torchwood had a system for categorising weapons but it had become quite lax recently since just before the millennium and over the years lots of things got shoved in the wrong storage space due to ease and space available. So she decided to start from the oldest files - type them up so they had a soft copy, and writing them up again so they had a hard copy as well, just in case. That alone was going to take up most of her time in Torchwood - due to the size of the archives - but once she had everything put away neatly and in its proper place it would make everything a lot easier and it would become easy to maintain that standard. She could then get to work with grouping them and making it into a proper database, which would be the easier job once she knew what they were and how she wanted them organised.

Lucy turned the pile upside down so she was starting from the bottom. She plugged her headphones into her ipod and began to work.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**AN: Hope you enjoy this second chapter and the first time Lucy actually knows whats going on. I've discovered that most of my episodes are too long to go up in one update so I'm splitting them into two or three.**

**Thanks again to Jeremy who edited it for me and thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter or put Lucy onto your favourites/alert. It means a lot to know that you like it.**

**Keep smiling, keep reviewing, keep reading.**

**Rea**


	3. Chapter 3 - Everything Changes Part 2

Torchwood got on with their jobs, but they all kept an eye on the CCTV screen that was open on every computer - watching PC Gwen Cooper walk around, still trying to work out how 5 people had disappeared right in front of her.

When Gwen walked off, everyone apart from Lucy, thought she had finally given up. But fifteen minutes later and Gwen was walking back holding two Jubilee Pizza boxes she walked down the bay and towards the tourist office.

"Well at least I don't have to order out tonight, she's done the work for us." Ianto commented dryly. Jack thought for a bit before speaking.

"Ok this is what we're going to do. She's going to come in here and we're going to ignore her, pretend like she's not there and not important. Everyone at your desk and get on with something. If she wants to talk to us, she's going to have to be the one to start that conversation. Ianto, you go upstairs and let her in."

Lucy grinned and turned back to her work, quickly turning the CCTV screen off - there was no need for Gwen to know they had been watching her. Once Jack walked upstairs to check something and to think of something that would make his entrance more impressive, Lucy noticed Owen turn back to his crossword instead of the half finished paperwork.

It didn't take long for Gwen to walk into the hub and join them, Lucy kept her back to her and tried not to look at Owen or Tosh as she knew that she would only need to catch their eyes and she would laugh. It didn't matter anyway because as Jack walked past she heard Owen stifle a laugh, Tosh couldn't help it she started laughing and Lucy grinned and laughed as well.

Owen pushed his chair out from his desk, laughing.

"I can't do this. I'm sorry. I'm rubbish. I give up."

"He set me off" Tosh accused pointing at Owen,

"I only broke after they did" Lucy added defensively.

"Well that lasted about 0.2 seconds" Suzie joked as she put down the blowtorch and lifted the mask.

"Hmm... she actually carrying pizza" Owen commented, Lucy got up from her desk and took the pizza's off Gwen.

"I'll take them." She opened the boxes and pulled out a slice from the bottom, "It's our normal just on two pizzas. Half and half. Mine's shared with you Owen. Doesn't look like Jack has any or Ianto. Suzie and Tosh you've got the other" Lucy said putting the other box on the workstation.

"Pass it over when you're finished." Owen replied "may be less than normal, but it's still food." Jack got up from his desk and walked over to join them.

"Come on. She was gonna say _'Here's your pizza,'_ and I was gonna say _'how much?_' and she says _'oh whatever 20 quid'_ and I say _'oh I don't have any money'_" he frowned. "I was working on a punch line. It was going to be good."

"Well now you've got your pizza I think I had better go." Gwen said, scared about what she had walked into and who all these people were.

"I think we've gone past that stage" Jack said simply, letting her know that they were not going to let her just walk out of the door.

"You must be freezing" Suzie said as she walked across the hub to join them and get her pizza, "How long were you walking round? 3 hours?"

"You could see me?"Gwen asked shocked

Suzie just nodded and opened the other pizza box

"And before we go any further," Jack said, speaking to the team, "who the hell orders pizza under the name of Torchwood?" Owen raised his hand, looking slightly sheepish but unrepentant.

"Uh, yeah, that would be me. Sorry I'm a twat."

"That man at the hospital." Gwen said, finally starting to ask questions, "That porter. What happened to him? That was real wasn't it? He was attacked."

"He's dead." Jack replied bluntly.

"But there's no one gone missing."

"We took the body, retrospectively changed the work rota, planted a false witness who saw him leaving the hospital, giving him an alibi for the next 48 hours so when his body is pulled out of the docks next Tuesday night he's only been missing three days" Tosh explained.

"He was murdered."

"Yeah."

"And you covered it up?"

"It's my job" Tosh shrugged. Gwen looked at all of them, trying to work out what Torchwood was and what role each of them played.

"And that other man, John Tucker? Last night in the alleyway, I saw you."

"What did you see?" Jack asked walking towards the police officer.

"You revived him."

"No." Jack said plainly, Gwen had to reach the conclusion all on her own and say it aloud. "What did you see?"

"You resuscitated him" She tried, but looked away from Jack.

"No. What did you _see_?"

"You brought him back to life." Gwen said with slight accusation in her voice.

"Yeah." Jack nodded, glad that she wasn't running for the hills or spouting at the impossibility of it.

"Who are you?"

"Torchwood." Jack replied simply.

"What's Torchwood?"

"This is Torchwood, all around you." he gestured at the rest of the team.

"And what happens to me? I'm police, Constable Gwen Cooper. You can't do anything." She sounded nervous and Jack thought for a bit before speaking.

"Right then, PC Cooper. Do you want to come see?"

"See what?"

"You saw the murder, now come see the murderer" He started to walk further into the hub, not waiting for Gwen to follow. Gwen was unsure what to do next but after a small prompt from Suzie she followed.

"What is Torchwood?" Gwen asked as she caught up with Jack "Who are you, what is this place?" There was a screech from above as Myfwany flew in. "What was **that**?" she shouted

"Pterodactyl." Lucy replied starting to finish off her work for the night as well as another slice of pizza.

Gwen and Jack walked out of sight and the rest of the team started finishing for the day.

"What do you think then?" Tosh asked

"About Cooper?" Owen replied spinning round on his chair, "she's nice enough on the eyes I suppose. Suzie? Lucy?"

"Well she didn't run away screaming?" Suzie said with a shrug

"She paid for pizza," Lucy added "even if we normally order more."

"Yeah, what's with that?"

"Her pay check is nowhere near as big as ours." Tosh pointed out, "we can afford to buy that much and it's on a rota when Ianto's not getting it on the Torchwood bill. It would be a fairly big chunk of her low wage pay."

"So do you know anything interesting about her then Lucy?" Owen asked. Lucy just shrugged and changed the topic.

"Anyone know if there is anything good on TV tonight?"

"I don't care." Owen replied, "I've got my threesome remember? I mean I need to find these people but it should be a lot better than what's on TV"

"I really didn't want that image in my head" Lucy shuddered and Tosh agreed.

"I'm watching an interesting program about the history of the computer chip." Tosh said and Lucy pretended to think about it.

"Forgive me Tosh, but while that sounds _fascinating, _I think I'll pass."

"Because it sounds deathly dull" Owen contradicted her.

"Owen, not only are you keeping a weevil in the cells s you can learn more about them, you named it Janet after your mum." Lucy said sarcastically, "Your idea of dull is very very different to mine."

"No, it's fine." Tosh said, "I know it's not everyone's thing..."

"But it is yours and we love you for it." Lucy said, "Might just go to a DVD rental place. I've watched all the stuff at Ianto's now."

"Did I hear my name?" Ianto said as he walked down and started to tidy up around them.

"Just saying I've watched all of your DVDs." She shrugged, "What do you want done with these files, back into the archives or does my locked cupboard work just as well?"

"As long as they are locked up, I don't mind." Ianto replied, "Makes it easier for me if I don't have to put them away and then find them again tomorrow morning."

Jack and Gwen walked back up and the conversation stopped.

"Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper" The Captain said introducing them.

"_Dr_ Owen Harper, thank you." Owen corrected him.

"Toshiko Sato, computer genius. Suzie Costello, she's second in command. Lucy Smith, working on becoming our weapons expert." Lucy smiled and locked the files into the cupboard. "And Ianto Jones, Ianto tidies up after us and gets us everywhere on time"

"I try my best"

"And he also looks good in a suit."

"Careful," Ianto said with only the vaguest tones of amusement in his voice "that's harassment, sir."

"But why are you telling me their names?" Gwen asked "I'm not supposed to know am I? This is classified isn't it?"

"Oh way beyond classified." Jack agreed.

"Then you shouldn't be telling me. What are you going to do to me?"

"What do you imagine?" Jack replied allowing her imagination to take over and come up with things much worse than what they were going to do.

"Well I've seen too much, your names and everything, and the Weevil and..." she looked at Tosh. "You can dump a man in the water and lie about his death."

Jack grabbed his long coat and walked out of his office, giving orders. Everyone took this as their signal to grab their coats and go home as well.

"Ok, Tosh, finish that calibration in the morning. Owen, first thing get a hold of Chandler and Bell, 'cause I think they're lying. Ianto, if he needs backup, then you'd better be on standby. Lucy, tomorrow morning I want a plan of what you're going to do with a rough estimate how long it's going to take if you do it full time and if you leave it as a side project. Suzie, I know it's a pain in the ass but I need the costing on the glove research." He pointed at Gwen, "And as for you, your coming with me. This way." Jack walked down to the paving slab and Gwen followed.

"I'm getting tired of following you around." She complained. Jack gave her his charming grin in reply.

"No you're not. And you never will"

Lucy waved at the pair as they rose on the paving block and then walked over to Ianto, saying goodnight to the rest of the team as they left.

"How long are you planning on staying?"

"Long enough to make sure Miss Cooper doesn't leave herself a reminder about Torchwood." Ianto replied.

"What if she just writes it down with pen and paper?" Lucy asked, she had always been curious.

"I did some research earlier, looked into her home computer, emails, facebook, that sort of thing. She's not the kind of person to write a diary from what I can tell but also she relies on the computer email alerts to remind her to do stuff. So the balance of probability says that she'll store it on the computer." Ianto replied and Lucy stared at him.

"That's kinda scary that you know that. Brilliant, but scary." The Welshman just laughed at her,

"It's my job - I clean up after them, remember?"

"It's more than cleaning up after them." Lucy argued " Anyway what I was going to ask was, do you want me to wait with dinner or not?" She asked, aware that her and Ianto were acting like a couple, but it was simply easier for them to live together instead of just living in the same house, besides they had become good friends and eating together is always better than eating alone.

"It'll probably be fairly late. You can take the car and I'll go via the chippy next to the taxi rank."

"Ok cool, just wanted to check. I'm planning an early night so I'll probably see you tomorrow morning. See ya Ianto"

"Bye Lucy." He said with a smile. "Enjoy the new book."

"I'd ask how you know," she laughed, "but I'm aware that you always know everything."

"It was delivered to the house this morning." Ianto replied, "I found out the usual way, with my eyes..."

"Ok, well like I said I'll see you tomorrow morning." With a smile and a wave she walked along the corridor and out into Cardiff Bay.

(*_*)(*_*)(*_*)(*_*)(*_*)(*_*)

The next day at Torchwood was fairly slow, Lucy and Ianto got in early as normal as Ianto wanted to check up on Lisa and make sure she was ok as well as having everything prepared for when the rest of the team decided to get in.

Lucy spent the early morning in the practice range continually changing and improving on her shots. It was very repetitive work as she got to not only Torchwood standard, but continued to aim for higher, she wanted to be above that with a majority of weapons. There was no point being the weapons specialist if she wasn't one of the best with the weapons available. Lucy simply put her ipod on, under her ear protectors, listened to music and allowed herself to forget about anything else apart from the music, the gun in her hand and the target at the other end of the range. She was very proud of her ipod, this was primarily because it was going to be made in a couple of years which meant that she was ahead of the market and Tosh wanted to take it apart to examine it. Unfortunately it this also meant that she couldn't update any music on it because the itunes system wasn't advanced enough yet.

The rest of the day was normal Torchwood stuff, if that was at all possible. They all got on with their own individual projects talking and laughing with each other as they did so. Lucy was the only one, apart from Jack, who noticed that Suzie didn't seem herself - her temper was slightly shorter and she was worried about something.

it was only around 7pm, after everyone else left that things changed. Lucy had decided to work late, she was starting to get into her stride with the setting up of the new weapons database and had nearly finished working out the different categories she was going to place them under, and decided to stay late so she could get it done as well as finish writing/typing up the first 20 files in the pile Ianto had given her. Once everyone had left Lucy brought up the CCTV of the city above her head, following Suzie as she walked around the bay seemingly working out what she was going to do, as well as following Gwen home from the Police Station and watching as she left the house again and headed in the direction of the Bay.

She wasn't sure when she should involve Jack in this, as he often had the CCTV in the surrounding area up on his computer screen at night but she was also aware that she couldn't take the risk of him not knowing. Lucy got up from her desk and walked over to Jack's office, knocking on the door before letting herself in.

"Lucy" Jack grinned at her, "what can I do for you? Letting me know that you're going home in case I want to follow?"

"Not quite Captain." Lucy said with a small grin, "That edges a bit _too_ close to harassment."

"You've been living with Ianto too long." He laughed before turning serious, "So what's up?"

"Just thought you might want to know that Gwen Cooper is on her way down to the bay, and Suzie's been hanging around, mainly staying in the shadows but still hanging around."

"There's nothing wrong with her staying in the bay, what she does in her spare time isn't my problem. But thanks for letting me know about Cooper."

"Just..." Lucy was trying to work out the best way to phrase it, "You might want to keep the CCTV on the water tower, it can't be a good sign. I know you noticed the way Suzie was acting today... I'm just a bit..." She struggled for the right word, "concerned?"

"Are you telling me that something could happen between those two?" Jack asked leaning forward suddenly interested. Lucy sighed as she tried to work out what to say.

"I know more about Gwen Cooper than I do about Suzie Costello, that's all I'm saying."

Jack nodded and brought up the CCTV like Lucy suggested. Gwen had parked her car and walked into the main plass by the tower, she was looking around and both Torchwood agents knew she was trying to find something to spark her memory of the night before.

Suzie stepped out from behind the tower and started to talk to Gwen.

"Only problem with CCTV." Jack joked "Can't hear anything." Once Suzie pulled out the gun he jumped up and raced across the hub to the paving slab that doubled as their outside lift. "that's my cue."

"What do you want me to do?" Lucy asked as he rose up through the levels.

"Keep watching the cameras." Jack replied.

Lucy watched on the cameras, she knew that Jack was there listening to Suzie admit to killing all those people because she wanted to use the glove but seeing his dead body drop into sight was odd. She quickly noted the time so she would know what to cut out of the CCTV recordings - or rather more accurately so Jack would be able to cut it out. There was no way that Lucy was going to be to hack the footage, delete that bit and make it look clean.

She watched as Jack came back to life and as Suzie shot herself through the head, making a mental note to find that book that released the hub from Suzie's back up plan.

Her phone went off, it was Jack calling.

"Lucy," Jack said the second she picked up "I hate to have to ask you to do this for one of your colleagues but can you get a body bag and the SUV? I'd deal with her myself but I don't want to have to leave PC Cooper alone."

"No problem Jack." She replied glad that she had eventually got the money needed to learn how to drive in her home universe. "I'll be 5 minutes max."

"Thanks." He said and she could hear the relief and the disappointment in his voice.

Lucy walked through the hub towards the car park, and grabbed one of the body bags from the storage room - it was always a bad sign in any company that they kept body bags and that everyone knew where they were stored. But in a group like Torchwood, not having body bags would have been a grievous oversight, they would never be able to protect everyone.

Forcing herself to stop thinking morbid thoughts, Lucy quickly drove from the car park onto the plass where Jack was giving Gwen a hug as she accepted what had happened to her.

"Thanks Lucy" Jack said as she jumped out of the car, she couldn't see Suzie's body and Jack explained that as well, "I put her on the lift, thought it best to keep her out of sight."

"Probably a good idea," she gestured towards Gwen, "how do you want me to help with PC Cooper?" Gwen moved out of Jack's hug and just listened to the conversation as she tried to get over the shock of not only defeating the Retcon but also watching Suzie shoot herself right through the head in front of her.

"I'm going to call the others, and then put Suzie's body in the mortuary. We need a team meeting first thing tomorrow morning. But first tell me honestly have you or Ianto got any artefacts at your flat?"

"None that I know of." Lucy replied, honestly, "I definitely don't and I can't imagine that Ianto does either."

"I didn't think any of you guys would." Jack sighed, "But Suzie took the glove home and experimented. I'll check with the others as well." Lucy made a point to not make eye contact with Jack, knowing that both Tosh and Owen had something. Unfortunately the Captain noticed this and sighed. "Great, this wasn't how I had planned my evening. Ok, Lucy can you take Gwen home - she's not safe to drive right now. I know you and Ianto are normally the first in but make sure you are both in by 9am. We'll have the team meeting then, once I know what to say." Lucy nodded.

"Am I allowed to tell Ianto what the meeting is about?" She asked, Jack just nodded tiredly looking his age - at least 100 years old. "It wasn't your fault Jack." She said trying to reassure him.

"I introduced her to Torchwood, I let her research on the glove and then she murdered three people. How is it not my fault?"

"Because we have free will. " Lucy replied, "She chose to accept your offer of a job, she pushed to be allowed to research and learn more about the glove and because _she_ was the one who got obsessed with it."

Jack decided not to reply to what Lucy said, she didn't expect him to but she hoped that he thought about it and eventually accepted it. Instead he spoke to Gwen.

"Turn up tomorrow morning at 9:30 once I've had a chance to talk to the rest of the team, we need to talk."

"Yeah." Gwen agreed.

"Come on." Lucy said to Gwen, "Let's get you home to your boyfriend."

It didn't take long to take Gwen home, Lucy managed to get a taxi pretty quickly and went back to her flat. She was exhausted and ready to go to bed the second she let herself through the door.

Ianto was on the sofa watching the news.

"I thought you'd be back earlier." He said as she let herself in, Lucy just sighed and he looked up and immediately noticed that something must have happened due to the look on her face. "What happened?" He asked as he muted the TV.

"Where should I start?" She replied as she made her way over and sagged into the sofa.

"From the beginning."

"Well we've got a team meeting at 9am tomorrow, it turns out Suzie was the one behind those murders, she blew her own brains out in front of Gwen who was already close to defeating the Retcon - she remembers everything now."

"Suzie did what?"

"Gave herself completely to the glove, it worked better with fresh and traumatic deaths. So that's what she did."

"Bloody hell."

"Exactly." Lucy agreed. "Jack got there in time to stop her killing Gwen so she killed herself instead. I was watching on the CCTV."

"Are you ok?"

"I wasn't nearly shot and my brains are still in my head." Lucy replied sarcastically

"You know what I mean."

"I'm fine. I need a bit more food and then a lot of sleep." She said with a smile, "Kinda ruined my plans for tonight."

"We'll get a DVD another night." Ianto said with a shrug. "So is the meeting tomorrow about Suzie then?"

"Yeah" Lucy pushed herself up from the sofa and walked into the kitchen to grab some cereal, Ianto followed her. "Plus Jack wants to check that the others haven't taken an alien artefact home - I said that we hadn't so if you have please hand it back in and let Jack know that I didn't know, I don't want him to think me a liar."

"I've not going anything." Ianto said with a small smile, "Don't want to get any attention because of Lisa."

"Well that's ok then. Not about Lisa just that I didn't lie. Sorry." She apologised realising how what she said could have sounded, "I'm not thinking straight." she was busy moving around the kitchen getting everything she needed.

"It's fine I knew what you meant."

"Yeah so the meeting is about what happened along with how to act with alien artefacts. It's probably also about Gwen joining the team - he's invited her as well although she's turning up half an hour after us." Lucy poured the milk over her rice crispies and started to eat.

"Hmm..." Ianto thought, "It will keep his attention off me with a new member."

"Yeah, although he hinted towards it being my job to get her up to scratch"

"It probably is, you're the most recent, only joining 2 and a half months ago."

"Great." Lucy wasn't impressed but went back to her food "That will be fun."

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

The next morning Ianto and Lucy were the only one apart from Jack to know what the meeting was about, although before it started Jack took the alien artefacts off Tosh and Owen and gave them a look of disappointment.

"Where's Suzie?" Owen asked as they sat down to talk "She's not normally late."

"That's what the meetings about." Jack said seriously as he sat down.

"So it's not just you bollocking us about taking stuff home? Because oh no I took something that allowed me to get sex and Tosh took something that put a book onto a computer." Owen moaned sarcastically.

"No" Jack sighed, "It's not about that, you won't be doing it again though - no matter how innocent the artefact is. Suzie took something home with her as well, the glove. She gave her mind to the glove and the knife and because she wanted more bodies to experiment one she killed for them. The last three bodies that we went to - the ones that were all stabbed in the back by a single knife - they were all Suzie."

"No..." Tosh breathed

"I don't believe it." Owen said.

"Well you'd better believe it, because she did. Last night, Gwen came back. She had been fighting against the Retcon and remembered something about the plass and the water tower and the police had a drawing of what the knife looked liked. As she was fighting against the Retcon and knew what the knife looked like, she was the only person capable of making the link between Suzie and the deaths. Suzie decided that the only thing she could do was to shoot Gwen and go on the run with both the knife and the glove."

"Shit." Owen muttered and Tosh had gone completely pale, Lucy and Ianto stayed silent as they already knew what Jack was saying and had had time to take in the information.

"Luckily Lucy spotted Suzie hanging around the bay and Gwen turning up on the CCTV so I was able to get there to stop her killing Gwen. However Suzie turned the gun on herself instead and killed herself. There was nothing that I could do to stop her."

Jack allowed them time to take in the information about their colleague and friend before dropping the next bombshell.

"I'm offering Gwen Cooper a job."

"What?" Owen spluttered, "why?"

"Because she's got skills we can use and because she's broken through the Retcon. It's not a subject up for discussion, she'll be here in about 15 minutes"

"So you call us in for a meeting to tell us that our friend not only killed herself but killed others as well. And on top of that you've found a replacement."

"I know it's not easy." Jack tried, "but the job doesn't stop."

"No" Owen agreed "it's not easy but that doesn't change the fact that she was our friend and you're acting like it's ok that she's gone because you've got us a new toy to play with."

"You know that's not what I mean" Jack said standing up and leaning over the desk to look at them, "You've got till Gwen comes in for her first day of work to sort yourself out. It's not her fault that Suzie did those things." He looked at all of them before walking out of the conference room to leave them to their thoughts.

"Shit" Owen said kicking the chair next to him over.

"That about sums it up" Lucy agreed with a sigh.

"You knew this was going to happen." Owen said turning on Lucy, "You must have done and you said a couple of days ago that it was episode 1."

"I tried to stop it, I got Jack to get Suzie to slow down on her research but I couldn't do anything else!" Lucy replied knowing that Owen was accusing her of not doing enough. "It's a damn good thing I was watching the CCTV otherwise Suzie would have shot Gwen and gone on the run."

"So we're supposed to be grateful?"

"I never said that." She could feel her temper rising and tried to shove it back down.

"Stop it you two." Tosh said cutting across this argument, "it's not helping anyone. The more important thing is what we're going to do now."

"What do you mean?" Owen asked, as both he and Lucy calmed down.

"Well what are we going to tell Gwen about Jack?"

"What _do_ we know about Jack?" Ianto asked sarcastically before Owen could say anything.

"Well we know he can't die." Tosh pointed out, "His records in Torchwood go back to the early 1900s. He went AWOL during WWII..."

"Ok so we all get your point. What do you mean?" Owen asked tiredly

"Well do we tell her? Does she know? Lucy?"

"Suzie shot Jack first." Lucy replied with a sigh as she played with the end of her plait, "While he was still on the lift." she added after a small pause

"Shit."

"Yeah, it was odd to watch on the CCTV."

"So do we let her know that we know or not? I mean Jack's never told us." Tosh continued.

"We keep it secret." Owen said coming to a decision, "We keep the little we know about Jack secret and at the first opportunity we ask her what she's found out; see if she spills anything. But we don't let her know that we know about Jack's immortality until absolutely necessary. She doesn't need to know that we know."

"Agreed." Ianto said and they all looked at him in shock, "what?" He asked, "I agree with Owen sometimes."

"Not very often though tea-boy." Owen joked,

"Are we done?" Lucy asked standing up, "I want to go shoot something."

"I might join you." Owen said standing up as well. "Seems the best way to get over what Suzie did and how Jack told us."

"Anyone else going to join us?" Lucy looked at Ianto and Tosh.

"It sounds very tempting. But I have work to do." Tosh mused and Ianto nodded, shooting something was always a good way to get rid of excess energy.

"Well come down and join me whenever you feel like it." Lucy said with a smile, "at some point we should do a team trip to laser quest or paintballing. Shooting moving thinking targets without actually hurting each other."

"It's a bit childish don't you think." Tosh commented with a small smile.

"Could be a laugh though." Owen agreed, "No matter how childlike it is. And we'd all get a chance to shoot Jack, although we could do that anyway."

"He still dies though." Tosh pointed out.

"I suppose." He shrugged, "I'll bring it up with him at some point. But for now I'm going to use real bullets and fake targets."

"Let's go shoot stuff." Lucy agreed, "See you two later"

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: Well that's it, I've completed the first episode, Lucy now knows what's going on and Gwen is part of the team.**

**A massive thank you to the people who reviewed the previous chapter, put Lucy on alert or on your favourite list. Or even just took the time to read. It means a lot.**

**Next week is Day 1, which is split into three parts, each of them roughly the length of this one. **

**Thanks again to Jeremy who beta'd it for me but doesn't want to know the ending until I write everything else, just so he can check continuity.**

**Rea**

**PLEASE REVIEW!**


	4. Chapter 4 - Day 1, part 1

**Enjoy the first part of Day 1**

**(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) 4th September (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)**

Lucy was not happy, she had been cooking dinner when she received a text from Jack 'Just a reminder that you're teaching Gwen the ropes, she starts tomorrow.' She had tried calling Jack to complain but he wasn't hearing any of it, claiming it was her responsibility because she was the newest and then hung up. So Lucy turned to Ianto to complain to him about it, Ianto very quickly tuned her out knowing that there was nothing that could be done and Lucy just needed to complain before getting on with it.  
>Just as she was getting into her stride, there was a rumbling sound from outside. The two Torchwood agents both immediately stopped what they were doing and looked out the window; there was something flying through the sky on fire, leaving a massive gas cloud behind it, from what they could see, hear, and feel when it hit the ground; it landed quite close to them. They both looked at each other and sighed, any plans for a relatively quiet night in went out the window and both mobiles went off. Lucy picked it up, knowing what it was going to say and was not wrong. 'Torchwood.'<br>It was time to go into work, she put her pasta and sauce into a thermos so she would have something to eat – it was going to be a long night and she didn't know when there would be time for Ianto to order food. While she was getting ready to go into the field and see what had happened, Ianto was searching for anything on his phone while changing back into his work suit, ready to go back to the hub and have everything the rest of the team needed when they returned.

Ianto's flat was only a five minute walk from the hub, which normally was not a long distance, but in times like this where speed was of the essence, Jack or Owen had agreed to pick her up from the flat providing it was in the right SUV was outside the flat in about a minute and Jack raised an eyebrow at Lucy holding a thermos flask.  
>"It's going to be a long night and I'm hungry. I'm not going to take it into the field, I'll leave it in the car and eat it when we get to the hub." She shrugged, as she got in. "Jack do I really have to mentor Cooper? I mean surely someone else would be better. You know someone who doesn't already kinda hate her."<br>"You're the newest" Owen said, "I had to do it for Tosh, and Suzie did it for me."  
>"The only reason Tosh didn't do it for you was because you already had a working knowledge and you're a special case. That's why I took over. Besides you don't know Gwen, you just know how they showed her on TV in very specific situations." Jack added, "Get over it, it's happening."<br>They pulled up and picked up Tosh.  
>"Hiya Tosh." Lucy smiled, "How much has this alien invasion ruined your evening plans then? Cause Owen would have just gone out drinking so really he should thank it. Or at least his liver should."<br>"Oi!" Owen said and Jack laughed. Tosh just shrugged.  
>"I was just going to work on updating the translation software. Nothing much."<br>"Gwen's just on the side there." Jack said.  
>"I know I've spotted her." Owen replied as he pulled up.<br>"You could just drive away." Lucy tried, Jack turned round and faced her.  
>"Enough Lucy. She's your co-worker, even though for now she's reporting to you. I don't care that you don't like her in the show. Live with it."<br>"Sorry Jack." Lucy said hanging her head, she knew that she had pushed it for too long and Jack wasn't happy or impressed, they stopped and Gwen got in.

"You'll want to sit in the middle." Lucy said to Gwen, "That way Tosh and I can use the computer screens." Gwen nodded and climbed over the younger girl into the middle, Tosh gave a small laugh.  
>"You're not brilliant at using them at the best of times anyway." As soon as Gwen was seated and the door was shut Owen started driving again.<br>"Yes well... I'll be better than Gwen. For now anyway. Gwen for the record - technology really isn't my thing."  
>"That's an understatement." Owen smirked in the rear view mirror.<br>"Can we focus on the meteorite and not my failings with anything higher than basic computers please?" Lucy asked  
>"Good idea." Jack agreed, turning round to face them better, "It's a simple locate-and-clean-up operation. Find that meteorite before anyone else gets their hands on it. Good to see you by the way."<br>The computer screens came down and Tosh immediately started getting to work trying to find the landing site while Lucy went online to the forums to look at the theories and first hand reports hoping to find where it had first been seen.  
>"You got enough kit?" Gwen asked sarcastically<br>"Tosh have you got it yet?" Owen asked as he drove  
>"Basic surveillance." Tosh shrugged answering Gwen's question while she tried to find to the answer to Owen's "With this, we can tap into CCTV networks and databases..."<br>"See it's a lot more complex than using a computer." Lucy added, "my technological failings don't look quite as bad now." Gwen didn't reply to Lucy she was too busy looking at one of the screens.  
>"Is this CRIMINT?" She asked before looking at them who nodded and shrugged, "This is the police computer system. You shouldn't have this." She accused.<br>"Might want to stop saying 'you' and start saying 'we'" Jack said from the front.  
>"Got it." Tosh said suddenly, "I'm patching it through to the SatNav now."<br>"Brilliant." Owen glanced at the screen and turned a corner, "We'll be there in 15 minutes."  
>"Lucy, what are you up to and how's it going?" Jack asked<br>"Trying to use the internet to see if I can find out where this thing was first spotted." Lucy replied "I figure when we've got time we can use this information and find out which area of space it started from."  
>"Good idea, any progress?"<br>"Nothing right now. The forums are fairly active as you would imagine. It went north-east to west across Cardiff from what I can tell though. It'll be more comprehensive later once the forums have died down a bit."  
>They drove in silence for just under 15 minutes when Tosh said.<p>

"Crash site is 100meters ahead, turn left." Owen did so and the headlights lit up the army in front of them.  
>"Shit." he said as he braked. "The amateurs got here first."<br>The Army had cut off the area and soldiers were climbing out of vans holding different pieces of kit as others kept a couple of police cars back. They all climbed out of the SUV and Lucy handed Gwen a box with some kit in.  
>"Wouldn't want you to leave it in the SUV and get left behind." She joked.<br>"Thanks." Gwen replied, "I'm a bit out of my depth."  
>"You'll be fine. We all were nervous on our first time out." Lucy said with a smile, "Plus it looks bad on me if I get you lost within half an hour of your first shift starting. Jack really wouldn't be happy with me."<br>"Alright" Jack said as they started to walk towards the barrier, forcing the police to move out of their way. "Usual formation."  
>"What the usual formation?" Gwen asked<br>"Varies" Owen said with a shrug  
>"How can a usual formation vary?"<br>"It's any way that makes us look impressive and that makes them do what we want them to do. It varies because we have different kit at different times." Lucy replied, "At least that's what I've guessed these past two months. Jack refuses to confirm my suspicions, but this is Jack we're talking about."

The soldiers didn't look very happy as they let them through and this made Gwen feel even more out of place as the rest of Torchwood just ignored it. The army never liked Torchwood and much preferred UNIT but that was because they were able to understand how UNIT was run and the chain of command, plus it was also easy to tell who was UNIT and who wasn't due to the uniforms.  
>"Let's see what we came for." Jack said pulling Lucy out of her thoughts and directing them instead to the meteorite.<br>As much as she would love to make sure that Gwen didn't throw the tool and hit it she was also aware of how important this incident is. Without the 'sink-or-swim' first day Gwen would have struggled in Torchwood - would struggle in Torchwood, she was getting her tenses confused. What was important though that Gwen knew exactly what she was letting herself in for and that would take a lot longer to achieve if it wasn't done on her first day. Lucy sighed, she also had to admit to herself that one of the reasons she didn't want to change anything was because she was scared of what would happen if she did. Being in the Doctor Who universe was one thing, but she wasn't sure how she would cope if she didn't have the future knowledge, no matter how difficult it made things. It was like a safety blanket, she had knowledge of what to do in certain situations and she hoped she would be able to put that knowledge to its best use.  
>Owen immediately started scanning it with a piece of basic - but good and useful - field equipment.<br>"What do we know?" Jack asked  
>"Bog-standard space debris" Owen replied glancing up from the scanner, which he was lighting with his torch, to look up at Gwen and smirk, "That's a technical term"<br>"Yeah, thanks" Gwen replied as she moved to look at it from a different angle. No one moved to stop her, the first time they had seen anything something from space like this, they had taken the time to look at it as well. It was a moment in your life that, providing you didn't leave Torchwood, you would never forget. This was the moment when you truly realised how small your life was in regards to the universe, it was at this point that you knew if Torchwood was the right job for you.  
>Lucy smiled as she remembered her own moment, it was when she was first properly introduced to the 'pet' pterodactyl - she had spent at least 15 minutes just gazing at Myfwany and realising that everything she knew about a TV show was real and that she was going to be given the chance to see a small part of the universe. It was a humbling experience.<br>"Take all the readings and let's get out of here" Jack said to Owen, Tosh and Lucy who immediately got to work.

Due to Lucy's failings with technology she was relegated to scraping off a bit of the surface dust so that they could try and find out where it came from later on as well as getting out the right equipment for Tosh. It wasn't the most exciting stuff, especially as Lucy's interests lay in other directions and mainly included actually dealing with creatures, and an awful lot of running. Lucy smiled to herself as the Chameleon Circuit song started playing in her head, although she groaned when she realised it was just a couple of lines because she knew it would be going round her head for days and as it wasn't on her ipod she had no way of listening to full track.  
>"Make yourself useful, sweetheart." Owen said, calling over to Gwen. "Pass us the big chisel from the toolbox."<br>"Not sweetheart" Gwen replied, Lucy busied herself with gathering more of the surface dust from one of the slightly deeper holes so she wouldn't be able to stop it happening even if she wanted to - not without potentially causing the same problem herself. "Gwen. One syllable. I'm sure you can manage it."  
>Lucy also decided it was best not to tell Gwen that antagonising Owen like that was not the best idea as it would just make his sarcastic nature worse as and he would start doing things on purpose simply because it annoyed you. This was something that Gwen would have to learn for herself as she was pretty sure it didn't come under her remit of teaching the Welsh woman the ropes.<br>"Not Sweet Cheeks? Freckles? New Girl?" Owen mocked her, Gwen bent down for the chisel that Owen had asked for.  
>"It's a shame your tool's not big enough for the job, darling." She said, sarcasm dripping off that last word, Jack laughed and Tosh smiled as she caught Lucy's eye. Gwen threw the chisel in Owen's direction "Catch"<br>"No!" Owen shouted but it was too late, the chisel landed in the meteorite "Shit." He summed up what they were all thinking as a blue light shone from behind the chisel.

They all stared at it for a second until a gas started to be released and it jolted them all back to life, Jack threw them all gas masks and put one over Gwen's face himself. The pinkurple gas seemed to look around for a bit before it shot up to the sky.  
>The captain looked at Gwen and raised an eyebrow- he was not impressed. Jack lowered his gas mask and started issuing orders.<br>"Tosh, Owen, Lucy, start tiding this area up. Right now it's not important, all we have is a piece of rock, the empty spaceship. We need to get back to the hub and find out where that gas went. I'm going to call Ianto and let him know, see if he can find out anything for us to get started with when we get back to the hub."  
>"I'm so sorry." Gwen said.<br>"You stay there and don't throw anything." Jack ordered her as he pulled his phone out of his pocket ready to call Ianto, he lightened the order by smiling to let her know that he wasn't completely serious.

It didn't take long for them to pack everything up and they were ready to go before Jack had finished on the phone. As they walked up and back to the SUV one of the soldiers stopped them.  
>"What was that gas?"<br>"That's confidential." Jack replied, using his 'I'm-in-charge-and-I-don't-give-a-shit-what-you-think' voice.  
>"You need to tell us what it was, what if it could hurt someone?"<br>Gwen looked as though she was going to speak and apologise again but Lucy just stared at her coldly and shook her head, saying something now could only make it worse.  
>"I'm sorry Major." Jack said seriously not giving the soldier any ground. "But this is Torchwood business not the Army's, this is our investigation so I do not need to do anything and if you could please move your men from our scene within the next couple of hours it would be appreciated. Now if you don't mind we've got work to do and you are standing in our way."<br>The major automatically moved out of their way and they walked back to the SUV in silence - in the usual formation.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

No one spoke again until Owen was driving the SUV back into Cardiff and they were nearing the hub, it was Gwen who broke the silence. Tosh was focussed on the screen and Owen was focussing on the road so they didn't have to say anything. Jack was already planning ahead for what they would look for if Ianto didn't find them something, and Lucy was busy trying to work out how she would help Carys but still not change the episode.  
>"I'm so sorry."<br>"For future situations." Lucy said sarcastically, "we don't break meteorites and release potentially dangerous gases. I think it's rule number 78, something like that. Not at the very top but definitely one of importance that you should know. "  
>"I'm really really sorry." Gwen said again, as she was sat in the middle of the car she could look at all of them.<br>"Lucy calm down." Jack said simply, "Gwen stop apologising."  
>"Jack she just released an alien gas." Owen wasn't impressed, as he pulled into the underground car park "She should be apologising."<br>"I honestly am sorry." Gwen repeated, her Welsh accent was strong due to her emotions and her guilt. Lucy had noticed that Ianto's voice did the same thing, when he was feeling intense emotions his Welsh accent got noticeably stronger; the only other time it did that was when he was trying to flirt with Jack a bit to make sure that he didn't find out about the Cyberwoman that was currently living in Torchwood's basement.

They walked into the hub, ignoring Gwen's continual apology,  
>"I'm so sorry."<br>"Seriously, stop saying that." Jack turned to look at her.  
>"I am though, I mean really..." She stopped and looked at them as they passed her on the way to their desks, "I mean really, really sorry. God I can't believe it."<br>"Didn't they teach you health and safety in the police?" Owen asked  
>"Well you were all throwing things at each other." Gwen replied slightly feebly<br>"We didn't miss." Owen said harshly.  
>"I'll sort it. Whatever happens, I'll deal with it" Gwen was being decisive although she realised less than a second or so later that she had no idea what it was let alone how to deal with it. "What do you think has happened? I mean it was just gas, wasn't it? Can't be too bad. Can it?"<br>"And in the whole of human history, gas never hurt anyone." Lucy scoffed and Owen nodded.  
>"On the plus side, we've got good evidence." Jack said, his voice loud and cutting Owen off before he could say anything. "Relatively undamaged."<br>"On the downside, there's an alien on the loose, we don't know where it is, why it's here or what it's going to do." Owen added  
>"Don't forget that it's a gaseous form and therefore we have no way of knowing how it's going to act, I mean it could possess someone for all we know." Lucy said, trying not to be too obvious with the idea of<br>"Alright you two stop it." Jack ordered and Gwen sighed  
>"This is the worst first day ever."<br>"We all make mistakes. Just get over it." Her boss replied kindly "I seem to remember that neither Owen or Lucy settled in to Torchwood completely cleanly either."  
>"I bet they didn't set an alien gas on the loose" Gwen said morosely.<br>"No." Jack agreed "they didn't do that. But our job now is to find and recover whatever it was that came of there." Before anyone else could say anything Ianto coughed to get their attention.  
>"This might help. Nightclub death, been phoned into 999. Circumstances are a little unusual. Might be connected."<br>Gwen grabbed the information off Ianto and raised her eyebrows in shock as she read.  
>"This, this isn't normal."<br>"What have you got?" Jack asked  
>"A kid died and turned into dust at the point of orgasm." Ianto replied as he could see that Gwen was trying to make sense of the report and was starting to realise that Torchwood literally dealt with anything and everything.<br>"Yeah." Jack nodded as he shut the lid on the meteorite sample, "I can see how that's unusual. Let's go then"  
>"Thanks for finding it Ianto." Lucy said, she had decided to make a point of saying please and thank you to Ianto every time. The way that everyone else in the hub treated him had been getting on her nerves and the fact that Gwen automatically fell into the same habit was not something she was happy about. Ianto may be the archivist and not go out into the field but he was still a member of Torchwood and it was time that he was recognised as such.<br>"No problem." Ianto replied giving Lucy a weird look.

They all jumped out of the SUV and into the nightclub walking straight past the police, all of them apart from Gwen. Lucy sighed when she saw that Gwen hadn't followed her into the club, Jack gave her a look to remind her that the ex-cop was her responsibility and Lucy walked back down the corridor to find Gwen talking with Andy.  
>"I meant to call it's been a bit of a whirlwind." Gwen was saying.<br>"Go on then, tell us all." Andy prompted her, desperate to find out all the gossip.  
>"Gwen!" Lucy said loudly from the doorway, "Gossip and catch up with friends in your own time, we've got a dead person to deal with."<br>Gwen looked at Andy and pulled a face, "Sorry, you can get away now. No point you freezing you arse off out here."  
>"Get your arse inside now!" Lucy said forcefully and Gwen ran inside, Lucy didn't follow her instead she walked up to talk to Andy and the other cop.<br>"Sorry about that, apparently it's my responsibility to deal with her because I'm the newest. I'll make sure to remind to her to call you - but she really can't tell you about what we do in our job - Official Secrecy Act. But she was right about one thing, you don't need to wait outside, we'll deal with it."  
>"So she's the boss of me now then?" Andy said and he obviously wasn't happy.<br>Lucy shrugged, "Sorry, that's just the way the penny falls sometimes. I've got to get back inside, have a good night Constable Davidson."  
>"You too." Andy replied before realising something, "Hey, how do you know my name?"<br>"We're Torchwood." Lucy said with a small grin before going back inside and finding the rest of the team in the girls loos standing around a pile of dust.

"You took your time." Jack commented, Lucy just shrugged.  
>"So, that pile of dust used to be a kid?"<br>"You can't really call him a kid." Tosh pointed out, "He was probably only a couple of years younger than you."  
>"How old are you?" Gwen asked, honestly interested. It had been bugging her that Lucy didn't look out of place inside Torchwood even though the rest of the team looked to be in their late 20s or early 30s - she would later learn that not many people in Torchwood Cardiff reached their 30th birthday, or worked for more than 4 years. It was something that would worry her when she found out, but by that time she would be in too deep and wouldn't want to leave no matter the threat. That was the problem with Torchwood, it made you not care that you were risking your life. All of the team knew that every big job could kill them, it was something that they had to simply accept and then shove to the back of their minds. In Lucy's case it was the death of her friends that she continually forced herself not to think about, and she wasn't sure which one was worse; not knowing that this could be someone's last job, or knowing that it wasn't because you already knew the circumstances of their deaths.<br>"Is that really important now?" Lucy asked "We've got something that turned a kid," Jack raised an eyebrow and she amended her words "ok - something that turned a guy into a pile of dust, and you want to know how old I am?"  
>"I was just wondering." Gwen said quietly.<br>"She's 23." Jack said to Gwen before looking at the bar manager, "More importantly though how did you know this used to be a body?" The Owner looked uncomfortable at the question.  
>"Er... I was keeping an eye on the cameras, and um I noticed... well..." It was clear that he didn't want to tell them what had really happened but they all knew what he was implying. "Bit of a shock, I tell you."<br>"We need to see that CCTV" Jack said and he nodded, "It's in my office." Jack raised an eyebrow at him and the owner left the toilets and showed them up to his office where the tape was still in the player. Lucy smiled a bit at the idea that they were still using tapes, it seemed so old fashioned by today's standards and even more so when she was surrounded by high-tech Torchwood equipment. She had to remind herself that it was only 2007 and although video tapes for recording purposes were dying out they were still in use; it was still expensive to record onto DVD.  
>The CCTV played and they all watched as at the point of orgasm the teenage boy became pure energy and a pile of dust.<br>"Wow" Jack said  
>"My God!" Tosh gasped<br>Gwen stumbled over her words, "He just..."  
>"Came and went." Jack completed the sentence for her and Owen laughed<br>"Now that's how I'd like to go."  
>"I'm sure we can arrange it." Tosh pointed<br>"How can that be?" The club owner was still confused, it was as though he had tried to convince himself that he'd made it up, but now there were others who had seen the same thing he was no longer able to deny it. "It doesn't make any sense."  
>"Life rarely does." Lucy said with a sigh.<br>"But it's not possible."  
>"Well it happened so clearly it is possible." If there was one thing Lucy didn't have time for it was people who refused to believe things even when they had seen it happen.<br>"Do you know the girls name?" Gwen asked him "Did the two of them arrive together or meet in the club? Is she a regular? Would any of the other staff know her?"  
>"I don't know." he had finally reached the end of his tether "We get hundreds of people here every weekend! We don't keep tabs."<br>Jack moved and clapped him on the back, "Thanks for your help, we've got everything we need. But my colleague here," he pointed at Lucy "will be taking that CCTV." He gently pushed him out of his own office, while Lucy removed the tape from the player.  
>"What are you talking about?" Gwen asked Jack, "We don't even know her name."<br>"This is Torchwood." Lucy pointed out sarcastically, "Did you really think we would need the normal Q and A session."  
>"Exactly." Jack agreed, "We really do have everything we need." He pulled out his a gadget from his pocket as he left the office quickly and the others all followed him<br>"We'll need a body from the cryo-chamber, close match to the dead guy's appearance." He gave the orders as they ran through the club. "Disfigure the face, make it look like a suicide attempt."  
>All of the team apart from Gwen, kept moving knowing that the sooner they found the girl and the creature the less deaths they could prevent. Gwen, however, stopped and stared at Jack.<br>"You have a stash of bodies?"  
>Lucy rolled her eyes but didn't reply to Gwen, she followed Tosh and Owen and got into the SUV. Tosh got straight to her computer and Lucy just looked at Owen who shrugged.<br>"Don't look at me, I deal with bodies so until we actually get one I'm useless." Lucy sighed and agreed with him.  
>"I feel the same but not with the body dealing bit. All we know is that the alien has taken on the host body of a young girl." She felt bad for lying and knew that there was no way she could do it for another 29 episodes. "We don't even know who the girl is."<br>"Jack's finding out what he can about the gas. I'm finding the girl." Tosh said, not taking her eyes off the screen.

"So what do you think about the new girl then?" Owen asked, it was the first time since Gwen had started they had had a moment to talk about it  
>"She's naive." Lucy replied straight away and Tosh agreed, finally looking up from her computer<br>"She's ex-cop. It's going to take a while before she gets used to how we do things."  
>"Are we sticking to the plan about Jack?"<br>"Yeah." Owen agreed, "We can grill her later, but for now he doesn't know that we know. Actually that's a lie I'm pretty sure he knows that you know about his little secret." Owen pointed out "There is no damn way that would not be in the TV show, plus Suzie shot him and you saw that on the CCTV. You probably know all of our secrets."  
>"I wish I didn't know anything." Lucy replied, purposefully not saying anything either way about their secrets.<br>"You're not the only one." Owen grumbled "The worst thing is you know about my future secrets before I do. That's not fair."  
>"Stop it." Tosh admonished him. "It's not Lucy's fault. She was stolen by the rift and had no choice about the matter."<br>"Thanks Tosh." Lucy smiled at her, "But it doesn't solve the problem."  
>"Agreed." Owen added. " What about you?" Lucy was confused,<br>"What do you mean, what about me? I'm not planning on telling her about Jack."  
>"He means, do we tell her about you coming from a parallel world?" Tosh explained<br>"Oh." Lucy said, she honestly hadn't thought about it. "Probably not, I don't know."  
>"What doesn't Lucy know?" Jack asked as he opened the door and slid into the SUV, Gwen a couple of seconds behind him.<br>"Anything to do with technology." Tosh said after a small pause before Owen could say anything crude.  
>"I'm getting better." Lucy replied automatically, grateful that her friend had covered for her.<br>"Lucy you say that every day" Jack laughed. "And Tosh still won't let you near any of the stuff that's not considered basic. Let's get back to the hub, I've got some information to start scanning now, and I want to find out who that girl is. The alien has definitely taken on a host body."

**(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)**

**A/N: Hope you like how Lucy's interaction changes the flow of the episode although the plot line still stays the same. Day 1 is split into three parts so you've got another 2 weeks of it.**  
><strong>Thanks for everyone whose reviewed, added me to your alerts and favourites list. It really means a lot. Please don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you next week.<strong>


	5. Chapter 5 - Day 1, part 2

**A/N: Welcome to part 2**

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"So what does this do?" Gwen asked Lucy, Jack was busy doing something with a laser and a glass window with drawings on.

"I'm using satellite tracking data to determine the inward trajectory of the meteorite." Jack replied before Lucy could say anything. "One thing about Torchwood you'll need to know." He continued stopping to turn round and smirk at Lucy before going back to what he was doing "Lucy is rubbish with alien tech, or even anything above basic human tech."  
>"He's trying to be funny and trying to find out which bit of space our monster for the week has come from. Besides Jack I've already warned Gwen that technology isn't my thing. You're just making yourself look stupid by repeating it."<p>

"It's not being funny." Tosh said as she walked in and handed Jack something, "It's true."

"And anyway sometimes a little techno-babble is good for the soul."  
>"Thank you Doctor Spock." Lucy grumbled and Jack laughed immediately getting the reference. Gwen looked at Owen and Tosh who shrugged.<p>

"Another thing you need to learn." Owen said, "Jack and Lucy have a secret language and we have all given up learning about it. You might know what the words mean in ordinary circumstances but it means something completely different to them."

Gwen decided it wasn't worth asking before going back to the original question about what her boss was doing.

"So that's like a route planner?"  
>"Not fair off." Tosh replied.<p>

"My boyfriend, Rhys, he's a transport manager. He does this sort of stuff, on a slightly smaller scale though."  
>"You have a boyfriend?" Tosh was immediately interested and Lucy smiled, she liked Rhys even if she thought that he was much too good for Gwen and for Torchwood.<p>

"Yeah." Gwen replied with a smile, turning to look at the Asian woman, "Do you?"  
>"Don't have time with this job."<p>

"What about you?" Gwen asks Owen and Lucy slightly uncomfortable at Tosh's answer. Owen just scoffed

"You've got to be joking, I get all the grief I need here."

"Owen does one-night stands, not relationships." Lucy laughed.  
>"Whilst you live with your crush in some sick pretence of normality." He responded<p>

"How many times?" Lucy sighed, "Ianto and I are _friends_! Just like I'm friends with you guys, he just happened to be the one who offered me the spare room when I started this job cause I had nowhere to live and he is too nice to kick me out."

"You've been there nearly 3 months, any plan on moving out?"  
>"Not yet, why you jealous?"<br>"None of you have partners or a life outside of her?" Gwen asked, wanting confirmation.

"Just you newbie."

"I've got a younger sister." Lucy said with a shrug. "I can't see her due to certain circumstances but she does exist."

There was a brief pause while Gwen worked out how to phrase her next question.

"I'm not being rude or anything, but... well maybe I am, how do you switch off from all this stuff? What do you do to relax?"

They all looked at each other slightly uncomfortably, not sure how to answer the question. Owen was the first to speak.

"I torture people in happy relationships."

"And his liver" Lucy added, "You torture that as well."

"Just because you don't drink doesn't mean I shouldn't." Owen smirked

"I never said it did." Lucy shrugged. "You do that, and I watch a fuck lot of DVDs. Tosh reads loads and fiddles with technology, Jack stands on roofs and stares at Cardiff and Ianto makes amazing coffee and normally picks apart whatever it is that I'm watching."

"And you two claim that you're not a couple." Owen said sarcastically and Jack and Tosh gave a small laugh.

"We're not" Lucy repeated although she knew that she would never be able to change Owen's mind. He was as bad as a dog with a bone.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"Gas traces confirmed as vorax and ceranium." Tosh said a couple of hours later, waking Lucy, Owen and Gwen up from their naps. It was a skill Lucy had learnt in the first week of the job and one she felt was important in passing on to Gwen, now she was her mentor.

Naps were good, naps were needed.

Torchwood days could reach 19 or 20 hours plus on one job and you had to learn to grab sleep when you could, going home wasn't necessarily an option. Also, Ianto's coffee was a life saver.

"Great" Jack said sarcastically as he walked over to Tosh's work station, "my two favourite gases. Can we do a check and find out what we know about them?"

"I'm all over it." Owen said putting down the file he was looking at before he fell asleep and starting to work on his computer.

"What's this thing doing?" Gwen asked as she woke herself up properly, gesturing to the search that was running on every work station.

"I've taken an image of the girl from the CCTV of the club. That cross-checks her face with the UK population" Tosh replied not looking up as Ianto walked around delivering the coffee. Lucy knew that he had made it to give Tosh a caffeine boost as she had stayed awake so long and to make sure that the others all woke up properly; he prided himself at being good at his job.

"And then it's my job to find out more about her." Lucy continued.

"You can't have every face in the UK on there." Gwen said getting annoyed, "That would be against civil liberties, data protection, all that stuff..."  
>"Hmm..." Lucy didn't say anything but smiled at Ianto as he passed her her mug. "Thanks Yan. You're an angel."<p>

"No problem." He replied

"Still doing that 'you' instead of 'we' thing" Jack pointed out

"Damn." Owen said as the scan finished, "119 suspects. This thing is supposed to give us a single clear match."

"The CCTV was too low res" Tosh explained, "I've tried magnifying and augmenting, but it just breaks up. Which means the software can't function properly" They could all tell she wasn't happy with the situation but also needed to remind Owen that it wasn't the problem of her software; the blame laid elsewhere.

"It's narrowed the numbers down. I could check through the rest for you." Ianto offered and they all stared at him, Lucy tried not to laugh because she knew and loved the line that Ianto was going to say next. "You know, the old fashioned way, with my eyes"

Lucy tried not to laugh, she really did but when Ianto pointed at his eyes and Tosh seemed so confused and annoyed that there was something that her software couldn't do, it was too much. She giggled and once she started it was hard to stop.

She was living inside Torchwood, this was an actual real thing. Her life was a TV program and one she knew well. It had been odd before Gwen had started and she had known it in theory but had quickly got used to working with television characters and got to know them as people, but now that Gwen was on the team it was all different. This wasn't just working with the characters, this was living the episodes. She knew what was going to happen, she knew where to go looking to find the girl that they were all hunting for. And more than that she knew the ending, or at least an ending. It was starting to become a bit much and she couldn't help but laugh at the turn her life had taken.

Ianto raised an eyebrow at her and deftly removed the mug of coffee from her hands before she could either break it or throw coffee over herself, the computer or any other member of the team

"It appears that Lucy has had too much caffeine." Their boss commented as they all looked at her and she tried to get her laughter and minor breakdown under control.

"I've always got the decaf sir." Ianto said and that shocked Lucy into ceasing her laughter.

"You wouldn't dare." She breathed. "Give me my coffee, please Ianto..."

"What about the finger prints I took off the alley wall?" Gwen asked, trying to get things back on track while she worked out more about how they all worked as a team.

Tosh turned away from Lucy, who was in a staring match with Ianto for her coffee, and quickly ran the scan. It came out negative.

"It was a long shot." Gwen shrugged

"Yeah just a bit." Owen muttered

"At least I'm trying to do something."  
>"No." He countered, "You're trying to do anything."<p>

"The CCTV must have picked up her arrival at the club." Jack said, stopping the argument before it could begin. "Tosh, can you reformat the image recognition software to trace her journey backwards via the street camera network?"

Tosh thought about it briefly before saying, "I'll have a go, but it will take a while to process. Every possible turn on every street corner means hundred and thousands of probabilities."

"Have a go. At least we'll know where she started the evening."

"HA!" Lucy said loudly as she got her mug back from Ianto "MY COFFEE"

"Yes Lucy." Jack sighed, not even turning round to look at her "It's your coffee, but please don't turn hysterical again."  
>"This bit of the job bores me." Lucy moaned as she started to drink.<p>

"It's necessary."  
>"I know that it's still dull. Anyway, we can cross-check the addresses of the 119 girls with where she came from, even if Tosh just uses the first couple of corners it should cross off a fair few of the potential hosts. And what about using the CCTV from inside the club, we got a better look at her on that. Can't we use that to check against the 119 - I bet that crosses a bunch off as well."<br>"Good idea." Jack said with a smirk, "You're not just good on the field."  
>"Just because I have an idea about how to speed this bit up, doesn't stop it being boring."<p>

"Well I know what you can do while they are working on that."

"What?"  
>"Set up Gwen on the system. Obviously just the basic stuff, and she needs to fill out the standard paper work as well."<br>"Joy" Lucy deadpanned before opening a software on her computer "Come on then Cooper, let's get you up and running. You'll still have to have your medical." She got out of her seat and let Gwen sit down.  
>"I'm doing that tomorrow." Owen added, "Or at least the day after this is all finished."<p>

"Well you may as well have this work station." Lucy shrugged, "I've got a small computer downstairs by the range that Tosh set up for me."  
>"Only as a temporary one." Tosh chipped in, as she got on with her work.<p>

"Well I'm sure Jack won't mind if I move down there more permanently. I've got stuff to be getting on with after all."  
>"Providing you have a laptop or something that you can, and do, use regularly up here I don't like the idea of my team being separated from each other, we allowed Suzie to do her own thing and look what happened. Use the shooting range one for when we have nothing major on and you guys are all getting on with your side projects."<br>"Brilliant" Lucy grinned, "Thanks Jack." She couldn't help but feel sorry for Ianto though, he was still in the area and Jack was talking about the team working as a group and keeping an eye on each other, and yet they were all happy to ignore the Welshman.

"I've got a hit." Ianto said ten minutes later, "Carys Jones, 17, lives at 25 West Rise. I'm patching the information through to the SUV's SatNav."  
>"Ok." Jack said grabbing some protection suits, "Everyone get suited up, grab the gas masks on your way out. Let's go."<br>While everyone was rushing to get ready Lucy quickly pulled the protection suit over her clothes and walked over to Ianto.

"Thanks Ianto."  
>"It's my job." He replied with a shrug,<p>

"I know, but you still found her. So thanks and well done."

"You should go." He gestured, Gwen was worriedly waiting not quite sure what to do. Lucy sighed but nodded.

"See you in a bit. Come on Cooper, first proper time out on the field. Rule 1. Listen to Jack. Rule 2. Don't get yourself killed - I don't want all the extra paperwork that would cause me." Gwen gave a small smile as the two went down to the car park, she wasn't quite sure if Lucy was joking or not but decided to act as though she was. "Rule 3. The Doctor lies, no sorry that's rule number 1."  
>"Whose the Doctor? Owen?" Gwen asked<p>

"Nah, he's _a_ doctor. _The_ Doctor is a friend of Jack's and one of my hero's. He's not here and you'll find out about him some day. I just wanted to say it that's all." She stopped suddenly as she remembered something else. "Also, another rule 1. Don't wander off"

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Half an hour later they were walking Carys into the hub. Tosh and Owen immediately took their findings to the computers, whilst Lucy moved to go put the extra weapons away.

"See what you can find out from her." Jack ordered Gwen who replied both worried and surprised that Jack would trust her that much so early on.

"Well aren't you going to help me?" She asked as Jack started to walk up to his office. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"Try not to say that in front of any prisoner." Lucy called over

"Lucy will come and help you once she's done with the weapons." Jack added, "She's your 'mentor'"  
>"Not by choice" Lucy shouted over again, "Take her down to the cells and talk to her, I'll be five minutes."<p>

They watched as Gwen slightly awkwardly walked the woman/alien through the hub and down into the cells.

"It does feel a bit mean." Tosh said when she knew that Gwen could no longer hear her.

"She's got to get thrown into the deep end." Jack shrugged, "Torchwood doesn't have a gradual sliding scale, and even if we did with a team this size we wouldn't have time to use it."  
>"I'll go down and help her in a bit." Lucy said as she disassembled the last gun, "It's not like we can't watch her from up here. But she let this creature out so know she needs to face the consequence. Only this time the consequence is some sort of sex gas monster that has taken on the host of at 21 year old."<br>"I'm not saying it's wrong." Tosh agreed, "It just feels a bit mean."

"Well now I've finished with these," Lucy gestured at the guns on the sofa "I'll go down and help her. Also I've been thinking, Gwen doesn't need to know my history, I'm just another Torchwood Agent. It's not like any of us are going to tell her about how we joined Torchwood - I don't see why she should know."  
>"Because you know about her personal future." Jack offered<p>

"That's not going to change if we tell her or not, it'll just change how she thinks about me and make her paranoid." Lucy shrugged. "I don't want her knowing Jack."

Jack stared at Lucy for half a minute before nodding, "Ok. We try to make sure Gwen doesn't know - you're going to have to tell her at some point."  
>"I know, I'd just like to be normal for a while."<p>

"And you need to tell me when you know an episode, that way I know how much you are available to help."

"I can't tell you what's 'supposed' to happen." She said with a shrug  
>"Agreed."<br>"Deal." Lucy walked down towards the cells to join Gwen. "Oh, by the way. This episode is called Day 1."

Jack gave a small laugh, "Of course it is."

Lucy arrived at the cells just in time to see Gwen start to snog Carys, as she knew it wouldn't be dangerous - just humiliating - for the newest member of the team she didn't stop the couple straight away.

15 seconds later, she announced her presence by opening the door and pulling Gwen off the other woman and pushing her out into the corridor before following herself and closing Carys back into the cell.

"For the record -" Lucy said harshly, "interrogations don't involve getting off with the subject. Especially not ones that kill through sex." She turned to look at Carys, "Am I speaking to the human or the alien?"

"She broke my ship" Carys responded and Lucy nodded in understanding,

"The alien then. She didn't do it on purpose. Why have you taken Carys body?"  
>"Why shouldn't I? Arghhhhh" Carys collapsed in on herself in pain but Lucy made no move to go and help her even though she wanted to help.<p>

"Carys?" She asked kindly and the girl nodded

"Where am I? Who are you?"  
>"What can you remember?"<br>"I was in the club, and there was this pink gas and... oh god..."

"You're here so we can keep an eye on you and keep you safe. We're trying to help you."  
>"By locking me up?"<p>

"You've got a creature living inside you Carys and it's already killed once." Gwen said and Lucy nodded.

"It's the only way we can keep you and others safe Carys."

"I'm losing."

"Don't you dare give up." Lucy said firmly "I am not going to tell your father that he is never going to see his daughter again. You stay strong and stay human. I'll get you a book or a magazine, something to keep your human mind busy. We've got to go back to work, see you later Carys."  
>"Thank you." Carys replied<p>

"No problem." Lucy smiled, "I'll try and make sure the mag has some sexy guys in. Orlando Bloom or Johnny Depp?"

"Either." Carys laughed and Lucy was glad to see her smile, it might make no difference in the long run but for now at least she wasn't thinking about the thing inside her. She was just a normal girl. Even if she was in a cell.

"Come on Gwen." Lucy walked upstairs and Gwen gave a small look back before starting to follow. When they reached the stairs, Gwen's phone went off and Lucy rolled her eyes.

"It's Rhys." Gwen said after glancing at it.

"Well, tell lover boy we still want you and he'll have to wait." She sighed, "I'll see you upstairs in a few minutes."

"Thanks." Gwen said before answering the phone call. "Hiya babe."

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Five minutes later, Gwen, Owen and Jack all walked up from the cells; all three looking angry and annoyed.

"What's up?" Lucy asked

"Newbie tried to strangle me." Owen replied as he walked over to his desk

"We've all tried to strangle you in the past."  
>"Yeah but not on your first day you haven't."<br>"What did you do?" Tosh asked from her desk, as she stopped working to look over at Owen

"I may have mentioned that I was impressed with her interrogation technique that's all."

"Well then you deserved it."  
>"And as I pointed out." Jack added, "Throttling of the staff is my job. I'm all for delegation but there are some things that I like to do myself."<p>

Lucy rolled her eyes as Jack once again managed to make everything sound sexual.

"So..." Ianto said as the cog door rolled backwards and he walked into the hub holding a cardboard box. "Whose for Chinese?"

"Yes please." Jack said, "We'll go up to the conference room. What did you get?"  
>"All the usuals; only in larger portions so Gwen could have some." Ianto replied. "Tosh can you grab the plates?"<br>"Sure" The Japanese woman replied, "and a fork for you as well Lucy, don't worry I haven't forgotten. Gwen?"  
>"Yeah, what?" Gwen was confused as to what she was being asked<p>

"Chopsticks or a fork?"

"Fork please." Gwen replied in understanding. "I've never been able to get chopsticks to work."

"No problem."

Soon they were all in the conference room, eating, laughing, telling stories and enjoying each other's company although Gwen wasn't as involved as the rest of them. She felt left out of this small family even though she knew it was going to take time for her to work her way into the team and how it subconsciously worked, it still upset her.

"She says... she said" Jack was finishing a story and the rest of them were laughing as they knew the ending. "'If I'd known what he was, I never would have married him'"

"She knew" Tosh added "She knew all along."  
>"She didn't care." Owen pointed out and Ianto automatically picked up the story.<p>

"Until he started leaving black piles of mucus in the bathtub."  
>"Honestly" Lucy said, "I swear the only reason she cared about that was because Mr Muscle wouldn't wash it out."<p>

"Always a big give away." Jack laughed, "aliens have no sense of household hygiene. Which reminds me." He got up from the table "Gotta pee."  
>"We didn't need to know that." Lucy said rolling her eyes as she returned to her food.<p>

The minute Jack was gone the mood turned sombre and they all looked at Gwen.

"So what's he told you?" Owen asked

"What about?" Gwen replied

"Himself." Tosh said as though it was obvious.  
>"You've been here longer than I have." Gwen pointed out.<p>

"We were banking on you."  
>"You're a copper, you're trained to ask questions." Lucy continued the interrogation even though the others knew that she knew the answers to most of their questions as well as how much Gwen knew. In that moment Lucy was completely grateful that Torchwood had her back, she didn't need to be involved in this conversation but the rest of the team knew that if she wasn't Gwen would want to know why and then the truth about her past would be known. By keeping her involved it kept her secret no matter how much they didn't like what that secret involved.<p>

"You don't know anything?"  
>"Not who he is, not where he's form." Owen replied taking another drink from his beer bottle. "Nothing, except him being gay."<p>

"No, he's not. Really, do you think? No." Gwen said and Tosh and Lucy agreed.

"Owen does." Tosh said, "Lucy and I don't."  
>"And I don't care" Ianto added, Lucy rolled her eyes at that thinking that Ianto would certainly start to care when they got together in the next year or so.<p>

"Period military is not the dress code of a straight man." Owen said as though it was the most obvious reason for his argument in the world and nothing could defeat it.

"I think it suits him." Gwen said with a smile and Lucy could see the beginnings of a school yard crush. "Sort of classic."

"Exactly." Tosh agreed, "I've watched him in action. He'll shag anything if it's gorgeous enough."  
>"I honestly think he doesn't care if it's a male, woman or an it. As long as it's alive," Lucy said "I'm not even sure if he thinks about it."<br>"We know he's from America right?" Gwen asked

"We don't even know that for sure." Owen said

"No US citizen by the name of Jack Harkness born in the last 50 years."

"Changing his name and deleting records isn't too difficult though." Lucy pointed out. "I mean I couldn't do it, but Tosh you could do it easily, you too Ianto."

They both nodded their heads in recognition and agreement.

"Maybe his identity is classified." Gwen offered as she leant over to get another prawn cracker

"Used to be something big in the CIA. That's what I reckon." Ianto said.

"He must have his reasons for wanting to keep things secret." Gwen pointed out.

"Sure" Owen agreed "Doesn't stop me wanting to know what those reasons are though."

The group fell into silence for the first time since they started eating. Gwen had passed their test, she wasn't going to tell them the little she knew about Jack, even though that little amount was a big deal - the ability to not stay dead was something you would want to know about your boss. However just because Gwen didn't tell them and they would now accept her into the group did not mean that were going to tell her what they had learnt up to this point. It only meant that they would keep her involved in all further discoveries about their time-travelling boss.

The lack of conversation meant that they could hear the background computer noise of the CCTV of Carys cell, she was sobbing.

"What's that sound?" Gwen asked as Jack walked back in and turned the screen on. Carys was sitting on the piece of concrete that passed as a bed, sobbing her heart out with her knees pulled tight to her chest. Gwen put down her fork and walked towards the screen, never taking her eyes off the image.

"What are we doing eating Chinese while a girl fights for her life?"

"Actually," Jack replied. "while we've been eating the computers have been running a full bio-scan on Carys. Profiling her blood, metabolism, organs, skin, the works. So we can see what effect the alien is having on her. They've also been taking samples of the air in the cell, so we can analyse any changes in the environment around her." Lucy could see on Gwen's face that she wasn't impressed and could feel the tell-tell sign of her fast temper rising. In the second she heard Carys' tears Gwen had judged them all and found them wanting. She had no idea what this job entailed, she had been doing it for less than 12 hours and already she thought that they weren't doing it properly.

Jack raised his eyes at Gwen as he ate another mouthful of his dinner before speaking again.

"Now, is that enough? Do you want more? 'Cause it kind of gets boring." He gave a small derisive laugh.

Gwen just stared at them all, pity in her eyes.

"You've been hidden down here too long." She made eye contact with every member of the team and Lucy once more got the impression that she wasn't good enough, that Gwen thought her just a kid who had got lucky. "Spending so much time with the alien stuff, you've lost what it means to be human."

Lucy knew there was no defence of her actions, but she had already been trying to control her temper and an insult on that level was not something she was going to let pass. The red mist descended and she growled as she leapt out of her seat, ready to bash Gwen into little tiny pieces, although even in her haze of anger she realised that sounded warped. Owen jumped out his chair as well and forcibly held Lucy back as she struggled in his arms. She had already been in a bad mood and had guessed what Gwen thought of them, but actually hearing it was another matter entirely.

"Let me go." She said trying to pull out of Owen's grip.

"Not until you calm down."

"I damn well know what it means to be human." Lucy was still growling in rage at the insult, "How dare... You have no clue. None at all!" She spat the words at Gwen and was glad to see that Gwen was scared of her and what she could do.

"Right now you are acting more like a wolf than a human." Jack said sternly, "Calm down and stop growling. She didn't mean you."

"I don't care, we're all damn well human. She can't..." Lucy stopped growling, as she tried to get control of her anger. Although, Owen still didn't let her go as he could feel her still shaking with rage.

"Gwen, just go and get on with some work. Show us what it means to be human in the 21st Century. Go." Jack said gently pushing her out of the room so he could deal with Lucy.

Gwen left the room, slightly scared of Lucy but wanting to prove to Jack she was worthy of this job, and wanting to solve the problem that she had caused.

Owen released his hold on Lucy, once Jack had moved to cover the door to make sure that Lucy wasn't going to chase after Gwen. Lucy screamed and threw her plate at the wall, the rest of the team decided that it was best for them to leave and let the boss calm their team mate down.

"Feel better?" Jack asked with a wry smile

"No," She replied although her anger induced haze was starting to go and she was now angry at herself for allowing it to take control rather than her controlling it.

"Thought you were going to turn green at one point." Jack laughed and Lucy gave a slight smile back as she sat on the floor, pulling her knees in tight.

"Sorry Jack. I really thought I had it under control. I honestly did, I've not lost my temper like that for years I swear. At least now you know why I don't drink – I'm damn scared of what I could do, as well as other things." She sighed, "God I was literally growling at Gwen."

"Well you definitely made an impact that no one else could have done. Are you sure you're not a werewolf?"

The question made the required impact, and Lucy laughed. "Pretty sure. I've been here for a couple of full moons now. And although my temper is more volatile once a month, it's doesn't follow the moon."

Jack thought for a bit, "Come on, you can go play at the shooting range. Get rid of some of that anger that way, and then you can apologise to Gwen later."

Lucy got up but shock her head, "I'll apologise now. But yeah, playing with a gun sounds like fun." She smiled, "Thanks Jack. And I really am sorry. Most insults I've learnt to just let roll off my back – I've had enough of them directed at me. But to say that I'm not human, and to imply she's the only one who cares what happens to Carys. I don't know." She pulled at her plait, "I just let it overtake me. I was planning to bash her into little bits. Even though I knew that that was literally nonsense."

"It's ok Lucy. Like I said, let's just get you using a gun and move on with life and help Carys yeah?"

She nodded, "Yeah. She needs some food, so I'll take the pasta I cooked earlier but never got round to eating. I'll go down in a bit and I'll apologise to Gwen on the way as well"

"No problem. But next time, try and get down to the shooting range before you start attacking your colleagues. Might be better for everyone." Jack left her to it, and she watched him talk briefly with the rest of the team as he passed them on the way to his office.

Lucy quickly tidied up the table and walked out of the conference/dining room. Owen was the first to spot her and started clapping.

"Oh well done, that is what I call a perfect way to end her already brilliant first day on the job."

"Thanks!" Lucy replied sarcastically, "I'm glad I achieved what I was aiming for."

"Well you nearly scared me, and I'm not a girl."

"I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not." Lucy said slightly confused before walking over to Gwen.

"I... er... I just wanted to say sorry. You _can't_ make that claim about us after knowing us for less than 12 hours but I shouldn't have reacted like that. I can offer loads of excuses but no real reason. Sorry Gwen."

"No problem." Gwen said quickly "just don't do it again."

"Don't make judgements like that about me again and we'll be fine." Lucy countered "Once you're finished with telling us all about being human come down to the range. I'll see if your skills are up to Torchwood standards."

"I've never used a gun before, I was on the beat." Gwen replied slightly worried and Owen called over to them.  
>"You're almost a newbie, should you really be teaching her about Torchwood standards?"<br>"You're just jealous because you know you couldn't beat me if you tried Owen!" Lucy shouted back before turning back to Gwen. "That's fine, I'll get you decent with at least one gun. And until then, don't actually shoot it and look threatening?" She shrugged, and grabbed the thermos flask from on the desk. "I'm going to take some food down to Carys and then go onto the range, call me if you need me. Just um... do whatever research or work that you think needs to be done. We'll start your gun training once this incident has been dealt with. See you later."

Lucy walked down to Carys cell. "Do you mind standing at the back while I bring your food in?"

"You think I'm going to hurt you?"  
>"I think you're a scared girl who wants to get out of the cell you're trapped in, as well as having a creature inside you that is desperate to get out as well. It's just a precaution. I mean the foods not much, pasta, ham and a tomato sauce but it should still be hot or at least hotish. So," she asked the question again. "Are you willing to stand at the back of the cell while I give you food?"<p>

Carys nodded and took a couple of steps back, Lucy opened the door and immediately noticed the pheromones in the air. The concept of snogging the teenager sounded the most appealing one in that instant but she forced herself to ignore it - the thought of one of her colleagues, flashed into her mind but it was gone before she had time to properly notice its existence. She walked out of the cell again and shut the door, breathing in the clear air grateful for the unfogging of her mind that came half a second later.  
>"Sorry I've not got that magazine for you yet. I'll speak to Ianto about what we've got upstairs and get the next person to come down with it."<br>"Please help me." Carys begged walking up to the door and putting her hands on it, Lucy could see she was fighting tears.

"We're doing the best we can Carys." Lucy replied, "I promise. You've got the best team in the world working on it. You're going to be fine."

She walked away from the cells and towards what was quickly becoming known as 'Lucy's area', the shooting range.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: Sooooo Lucy lost her temper in a biiig way with Gwen. I had fun writing that.**

**Thank you to everyone who put my story on their alerts list and on the favourites list (would be nice to have a few more reviews though... small wink wink nudge nudge). I'm really glad that people are finding and liking my story.**

**See you next week, reviews make me happy**

**Rea**


	6. Chapter 6 - Day 1, part 3

**Enjoy the last past of Day 1**

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Lucy sent a quick text to Ianto about a magazine for Carys before picking up the .45 she had been practising with the day before as well as the ear protectors. She ran her eyes over the targets and made a mental note to get Ianto to buy some more as they were full of holes. Lucy also decided she was going to take all the empty beer bottles and line them up so she could practice precision shooting as well.

An hour later, the red light that had been installed started flashing and Lucy quickly pulled off the ear protectors and ran up to the main area, the gun still in her hand. Jack had installed three lights into the shooting range so that they could communicate with Lucy while she was down there; red, yellow and green. Green just meant she should come upstairs but it wasn't an emergency, so far that had only been used to tell her the take-away had arrived. Yellow was for slightly more important things, such as a debriefing or a minor problem. Red meant that something was wrong and she was needed straight away - whatever it was, it was an emergency.

She got upstairs to see Gwen and Tosh walking back into the hub while Jack put the Doctor's hand into a new jar.

"What happened?" She asked, although she was pretty sure of what the answer was going to be.

"Owen was being a _cock_." Gwen replied.

"Owen's always a cock." Lucy said confused, "Doesn't mean you need to send the emergency signal."  
>"Carys escaped." Tosh explained. "Owen went down to check on her and she took his swipe card, as well as all of his clothes."<p>

"I didn't need that mental image." Lucy said with a small shake of her head. "So what do we do now, apart from the obvious which is find her."

"Well after all I said to Jack, a severed hand seemed to be more important to him than a young girls life." Gwen was not impressed and it was obvious in the way she spoke

"And you don't know or understand why that is so shut up." Lucy said quickly. "It's still only your first day remember."  
>"Calm down Lucy." Jack said soothingly before looking at Gwen. "If it's so important to you, <em>you<em> find her. Use your friends in the police to do something useful."  
>"I'll call them and get them to put out an ABP. Woman possessed by gas knobbing fellows to death."<p>

Owen ran up from the med bay, he had obviously got his spare set of clothes and lab coat while the others were chasing Carys.

"Oi! You'd better get in here." They all walked over to the bay to see what was so important.

"So I'm trying to interpret the results of the bio-scan, yeah?" He gestured at the rat to show that that was what it was there for. "But it's all just a mess. Like there is no definitive readings. Because everything in her body keeps changing, nothing stays constant. So as soon as you think you've got something clear, the metabolic rate, the blood pressure, whatever, it all goes wild again."

"Because she's fighting the alien for control of her own body?" Jack asked

"Exactly."  
>"So does that mean it's changing from human into the gas or whatever body the gas normally uses?" Lucy asked<p>

"Probably. So I decided to do a comparative diagnostic, recreate the circumstances, accelerate the process a little, see what's going to happen to Carys."

"Thanks." Gwen replied and Lucy just gave him a small smile to know that she was grateful as well.

"I infected the rat with a of the vorax and ceranium gas traces we found down at the crash site and at the nightclub."

"Looks fine so far." Tosh commented.

"Once that gases start to flow around the body the party really starts." He projected the computer screen onto the wall so everyone could see what was happening. "The heart rate triples, the brain swells, pressing against the skull." He pointed at each section of the body as he spoke about it. "As that keeps going, the lungs begin to shrink making it impossible to breathe, the pressure increases on all the internal organs, until..."

The rat in the box exploded and they all flinched in surprise and horror. Owen just smirked and looked quite impressed with himself.

"Rat jam!"  
>"And that's what's going to happen to Carys." Gwen asked horrified but Lucy had a different question.<p>

"You timed that perfectly. Just _how_ many rats have you exploded to know how long it would take and what would happen, and more importantly have you told Ianto he has to clean exploded rats from those boxes yet?"

"That was my fourth rat and..." He pretended to think about it. "No and it's his job to tidy up after us."  
>"His job is as the archivist." Lucy countered<p>

"He's the tea-boy."

Jack stepped in before it could turn into an argument.

"Lucy, Ianto accepted the role knowing that he would have to tidy around after us, he's the Alfred to our Batman. Owen, you have to tell him and it isn't really part of the job description to clean up your experiments no matter how useful they are."

"'I'm losing'. That's what she said to me." Gwen said still thinking about Carys and the rat.

"Right now, it's a struggle between where Carys ends and the alien begins." Owen admitted as he pulled his gloves off and threw them in the bin.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"We have to think like her." Gwen was saying as she stood in front of the board of pictures and information she had put together, trying to work out where Carys had gone. "Put ourselves in her place. It's the only way to find her"

"Except we don't know what her controlling impulse is by now. Carys or the alien inside." Jack got up from his desk to join them, "The last thing I saw was a fight for control."  
>"And even if Carys is winning right now she's just a scared kid." Lucy added, "Hardly thinking straight even if she wasn't fighting for her own body."<br>"The overriding factor for the parasite is to have sex." Tosh said and Lucy recognised the tone of voice she used when she was thinking about a problem and was about to solve it. "It's a survival instinct. That's bound to be the strongest drive."

"So you're Carys." Gwen said continuing Tosh's train of thought, "You're desperate to have sex because that's what the thing inside you needs. But you know it will kill, where would you go?"

"I'd come round and shag you." Owen said dryly, Lucy rolled her eyes at him and the rest just looked impressed. "What?!" He said defensively "It was a joke, can't I have a joke with my team-mates?"  
>"Right now?" Tosh replied, "No."<p>

"Well I'd go after people I didn't like, people I wouldn't care about if they died. People who had made my life hell." Lucy said drawing their minds back to the problem in hand and not Owen.

"What about brothels, lap dance clubs?" Jack offered

"I think Lucy's right." Tosh mused, "Maybe not people who had made my life hell but I'd definitely go after my exes."

They all thought about it briefly before agreeing.

"Ok." Jack said as he went back into his office to grab his great coat, "Let's get to the SUV, Gwen grab any information you have about any ex boyfriends."  
>"I've only got one" Gwen said grabbing a couple of the emails, "He was cheating on his girlfriend with her and has a kid."<p>

"Sounds like a good target. You got a name?"

"Eddie... Eddie Gwynne."

"Great." Tosh can you find out where he lives while we go there?"  
>"Easily." Tosh almost looked insulted that Jack thought she couldn't.<p>

"Right that's what we do, come on."

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

They had got to Eddie's house too late and, as Gwen didn't have any other information on old boyfriends, were now driving round the city centre hoping that they would find her.

"So what's our next move?"  
>"Stop the entire city of Cardiff from shagging?" Owen offered<p>

"Put Bromide in the water supply?" Gwen joked as she started to sag in the back seat of the SUV from tiredness. Torchwood was an exhausting job and she was just beginning to really understand that. This job had started on a Friday night at about 8:30pm, it was now nearing 5pm on Saturday, her body was starting to remind her that sleep was important and that just taking naps where needed was not enough.

"Too hit and miss." Jack replied seriously.

"Yeah and the water company got really annoyed the last time we did that." Owen added, Gwen sat up in her seat as she was once more reminded of the power that Torchwood had and what it meant to be a part of this team.

"It could have used anybody in Cardiff, why hers?" Tosh asked as though that might hold the clue

"I just presumed it chose her randomly." Gwen said with a shrug

"It's mining Carys life to get what it needs."Jack thought out loud "Anything you can think of?"

"What are you all looking at me for?"

"Well you did all the research." Lucy pointed out, "What about her job anything useful in that?"

"She's just a temp, a receptionist."  
>"Well where is she temping?" Lucy pressed the point hoping someone would work out the answer, when she had time she was going to make a list of rules for herself about how much she was allowed to change or do in advance next time she knew an episode but for now she would just have to prompt them and hope that they got to the answer in time.<p>

"I'll pull her file up." Tosh said and quickly did so. "Conway Clinic."

"You're joking." Owen breathed as the implications of what Tosh said hit home, everyone apart from Lucy looked at him waiting to expand his point.  
>"What's up?"<br>"It's a bloody fertility clinic. Sperm donor, an unlimited supply of orgasmic energy without all the build-up."  
>"To say that we're in deep shit would only just cover it." Lucy sighed, "I think that would count as the perfect hit."<p>

Jack turned the SUV around and started driving back into the centre of town while Tosh brought the clinic up on the computer map so she could give directions or put it onto the SatNav when needed.

Lucy started pulling the guns out from underneath the seats, once she'd checked it was ok she passed it to one of the other team members. Gwen took it off her uncomfortably,

"What's this for?"  
>"Do you really need me to answer that?" Lucy asked as she passed one forward to Owen.<p>

"I've never used a gun. I told you that earlier, Lucy." Lucy just shrugged.  
>"You were in the police." Jack said surprised<p>

"I was on the beat."  
>"And like I said earlier as well. Hold it and look threatening, try not to kill one of us and leave the safety on. " Lucy said dryly now passing out the ammunition.<p>

"What do we do if we find her? How are we going to get that thing out of her?" Gwen asked

"Judging by the test results, the gas needed a host because prolonged exposure to our atmosphere is poisonous to it." Tosh explained.

"But our bodies are the perfect environment." Lucy continued

"So if we isolate it from Carys' body..." Jack said and Lucy nodded

"It won't survive for long." Owen agreed

"Sounds like we have ourselves a plan."  
>"But how are we going to do that?" Gwen insisted<p>

"Faith, hope and a little bit of pixie dust." Lucy said sarcastically and Owen snorted in laughter. "Look Gwen, don't question the plan. We can work out the problems with it as we go."  
>"It's a pretty big problem, and it's not a plan - we're forcing it to die."<br>"Just like it did those poor blokes."  
>"And what about Carys?"<p>

"Better start praying we get to her in time." Owen said seriously and the SUV fell silent as Jack continued to drive.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Three minutes later and after breaking four driving laws they pulled up outside the clinic. Jack parked the car right outside the door - breaking the fifth law - and they all jumped out, guns in hand, ready for the attack. Gwen was positioned in the middle of the group as they all recognised her as the one that needed the most protection.

Jack kicked down the door, there was no one in the main reception so they moved further into the building. Gwen was the only one to keep her gun lowered as the rest all kept it ready to use at any moment. There was one man sitting in the second reception area, he was reading a magazine and jumped up in surprise when they appeared.

"OUT!" Jack ordered him, "Get as far away from here as you can."

The man looked at them nervously and nodded, he ran from the room grabbing his bag as he did so.  
>"Spread out." Jack ordered his team, "Check every room. Gwen, stay with Lucy."<p>

Every door that they opened was to a small room and in each room there was a pile of black dust that they knew was originally a human.

"How many more?" Gwen breathed and Lucy shook her head

"I don't know, but now is not the time to be going into shock. Stay with me!"

"In here!" Owen shouted from downstairs and they ran to join him, blocking Carys into another reception room.

"Nowhere to run."

Carys looked around but they were fanned so that she couldn't get past one of them without being in the gun-line of another.

"All the sex, all we see, all we think. So much beauty and so much fear. We want it but we're so afraid of-" She was unable to finish what she was saying as she screamed and doubled over in pain. Gwen moved to catch her automatically, but Lucy was closer. She helped the younger girl to the floor.

"The strain on her body is too much." Owen explained, "any second now she's rat jam."

"One more." Carys said, begged, to Lucy. "One more and I'll be strong. Each time it works less. Each time the feeling is weaker. One more, make me feel alive. Make me feel human"

"I can't Carys." Lucy said sadly, she pulled the girl in for a hug in the way she did with Becky. "I just can't." Jack stowed his gun in his holster and joined them.

"I can." He moved to give Carys a kiss

"Jack?" Gwen said from the side, warning him.

"I've got a surplus of life, I'm giving it away." He snogged Carys and the girl glowed with the energy. Lucy, Tosh and Owen all looked at each other and silently agreed to file it under the 'talk about later' category.

"That was just the kiss." Jack said with a small smirk at Carys when they stopped and she stopped glowing, "Imagine the buzz you would get from the rest." Carys grinned and then fainted in his arms. "Wasn't exactly the reaction I anticipated"  
>"No" Lucy agreed, "but she's still alive."<br>"Her body won't last much longer." Owen said.

Gwen walked over from where she had been standing on the side of the room and bent down to kneel at Carys head.

"Use me. Leave Carys. Take my body as host just let her live."  
>"Gwen what are you doing?" Lucy asked. "I really don't want to have to tell your boyfriend you died first day on the job. Or ever, really."<br>"I'm stronger than she is." The Welsh woman said looking up from where she was kneeling, her hands either side of Carys head. "I'll last longer, you know what's happening, you might be able to save me, I..."

"OK" Jack said standing up and pulling Lucy up with him.  
>"Jack, you can't let her." Tosh complained<p>

"Like she said... she responsible for this."  
>"Come on then. Do it. Leave her." Gwen said as she stood up and tried to mentally prepare herself for being possessed by an alien and for the fight to control her own body.<p>

Carys back arched and the pink gas left her, it hung in the air for a second or so before moving towards Gwen who automatically took a couple of steps backwards. As it passed Jack he threw down the portable prison cell that he had taken off Owen earlier that day when they captured Carys.

They called all hear the moans of the creature as it tried to get out and fought against the walls.

"How long can it survive in there?" Owen asked Tosh quietly

"It's pretty weak." Tosh replied "Why?"  
>"Bit worried about the how long that battery will last for."<p>

"Look" Gwen said as the gas started to fade, "it's dying." The gas fell to the ground and became a large pile of pink/brown dust, similar to the bodies that it had left in its wake. About 5 seconds after it died the battery of the cell ran out and dissipated.

"Travel halfway across the universe for the greatest sex," Jack said as he picked up the dust and let it fall through his hands, "still end up dying alone."

Gwen leaned forward and gave Jack a small kiss.

"Thank you." She said before walking to join the others.

"Hate to break the moment." Lucy said with a small smirk "but we have got a tidy up to do. Loads of bodies, or rather not bodies to deal with. Deaths to explain and Carys to take home once we're sure she's clean."

"Good point" Jack immediately became all business again. "Tosh, Gwen go find out what's happened here. Owen, go get the medical kit and scanner from the SUV - check Carys is ok. Lucy, can I have a word?"

Lucy nodded and everyone got to their jobs.

"How much of this did you know?" Jack asked, jumping straight to the point.

"How much would you hate me if I said all of it?" Lucy asked, slightly uncomfortably. Jack sighed, and pinched his nose.

"At some point you and I need to work out the rules for dealing with this."  
>"I agree" Lucy said "I mean I did what I could but... Jack I have a request?"<br>"What's that?"  
>"Can you not Retcon Carys?" She asked and Jack looked surprised so she ploughed ahead. "It might make a difference now, but it might still not stop the nightmares or the fear, and there's nothing to say that the next time she has sex she won't remember everything. Forgetting it isn't going to help, talking about it is."<br>"Who's she going to talk to? You?"

"Well why not? I'll listen and I know about aliens and what's happened to her. If she remembers in the future she's just going to get shipped off to the loony bin."

Owen came back in and started running the scanner over Carys body.

"She's clean." He announced soon after and Jack nodded.

"Ok." he looks and Lucy and nods, "ok - she's your responsibility."

"Thank you" Lucy said seriously.

Carys moaned and started to move from where she was lying on the floor. They could tell she was about to wake up.

"Owen, you help her outside."Jack ordered, "Lucy, the Retcon is in the glove compartment, you only need one tablet. It's your job to make sure she gets home safely with this incident behind her." Lucy nodded.

"Understood. Am I ok to go home after or do I need to go back to the hub?"  
>"Go home." Jack laughed, "It's been a long day."<br>"We've been working for around 18 hours" Lucy agreed, "Not quite what you had planned for Gwen's first day."  
>"Not exactly." Jack agreed, "We'll do that on Monday when I expect you in bright and early."<p>

"See you Jack." Lucy smiled "I'll get a taxi to Carys', instead of driving the SUV." She left the room, Owen followed carrying Carys.

Lucy made a point of getting the Retcon out of the SUV as Carys was just waking up.

"Where am I?" She asked scared, before noticing she was just outside of her place of work, "who are you?"

"Think about it." Lucy said sadly "You'll remember."

Lucy could see the exact moment where Carys remembered and realised what had happened. Her eyes widened and the fear in them was palpable. She curled into herself and Lucy grabbed her arms.

"Hey." She said softly, "it's fine. What do you feel?"

"Human." Carys breathed. "I can't feel it anymore."

"We got it out of you," Lucy smiled at her, "It's dead and you're free."

"But... I remember... it's really gone?"

"Really really." Lucy looked up from Carys at Owen, "Can you get us a taxi? I think Carys would like to go home, providing that's ok with you, doctor."

Carys looked up at Owen her eyes begging him to say that was fine, all she wanted to do was hug her dad and have him tell her everything was going to be fine. Owen nodded, "I'm prescribing bed rest as well as some strong pain killers and some sleeping tablets. Did you get them out of the front of the SUV Lucy?" He asked and she knew he was talking about the Retcon.

"Yup." Lucy nodded, "I'll make sure Carys gets what she needs."

"Then I see no problem with her going home. I'll flag down a taxi for you."

Lucy checked that the taxi driver couldn't hear everything she was saying before turning serious as she talked to Carys.

"We need to talk about what happened. I know you don't want to but this is important, you've got a choice to make and you have to do it now."  
>Carys' face paled "What?"<p>

"I can give you a tablet so you don't remember the past 48 hours, it'll just feel like an extreme hangover. However that doesn't mean you'll never remember, you might still have nightmares and one day it might come back in bits and pieces. Or you can go home with my personal number and all your memories intact, you will definitely have nightmares and flashbacks but you'll be able to talk to someone about them, someone who might not know exactly what you are going through but who knows about aliens and about what happened."

"If I take the tablet what happens if I remember?" Carys asked

"We can have you down on the system as someone who needs to be watched. That will just simply mean that if anything unusual happens it'll be flagged up, if you need psych help I can get that as something to be flagged up as well so we can try to get you pointed towards someone who knows about this stuff. But that probably won't happen, and I have no idea how much you'll remember or even if you will at all. It's quite possible that this will just be a bad dream and a hangover, but it is also possible that next time you have sex you'll remember everything or at least enough to mentally scar you."

"And you'll help me?"

"I'll do what I can." Lucy replied, she could see what answer Carys was leaning to and was glad of it. "If that means you calling me at all hours of the night with nightmares, that's fine. If you are calling because you want to talk about it, great. If you are calling because you need someone on the other end of the phone to talk about nonsense while you try to get your head straight I can do that as well. I'm not a professional in this area Carys, I've only been in the job a couple of months. But I will help you through this in any way I can."

"Ok." Carys nodded, "I won't take the tablets. What are you going to tell my dad?"

"As close to the truth as possible." Lucy said slightly less seriously, "You were involved in an incident where you saw people die, you were watching from the sidelines unable to escape but unfortunately everything else is confidential and that if you want to move away from Cardiff we can do that by putting the pair of you in witness protection or by making sure you have the money to live somewhere else. And that is an option Carys, if you can't be in Cardiff anymore we can move you."

Carys nodded in understanding, she gazed out of the window at Cardiff city passing by.

"Can we not talk about it anymore?"  
>"No problem." Lucy smiled, "Legolas or Aragorn? And I'm talking the characters and not the actors. Cause Legolas with his bow is damn nice on the eye but I find there is just something about Aragorn's mystery and his dark hair that makes him sexy and gives him the edge for me."<p>

Carys laughed,

"I agree Aragorn is nicer, I don't trust a guy who cares more about his hair than I do."

"He's too much off a pretty boy I admit." Lucy said glad to see Carys was engaging in the conversation. "But I do love the bow as a weapon, but then I love swords as well... and those blue eyes of his..."

"They are very blue."

The taxi pulled up outside Carys house, Lucy paid him and got out with her. "I'll see you in and talk to your dad. You are going to get through this Carys, I promise."  
>Carys nodded and Lucy could see her readying herself, she knocked on the door and within seconds her father opened it. Carys stared at him before sobbing and launching herself into his arms.<p>

Lucy showed Mr Jones her ID over Carys' shoulder as he hugged his daughter and held her tightly. "Can I come in Mr Jones? There are some things we need to discuss. Your daughter is in no trouble but she's had a bit of a scare."

Her father nodded and moved out of the doorway, Carys still clinging on to him, Lucy walked into the house and shut the door behind her.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: Hope everyone enjoyed Day 1. I'm currently busy writing NaNo and having a lot of fun, even though it's hard work.**

**Next week is my own original chapter which looks at the consquences of Day 1 and Gwen deciding that she does want to stay.**

**I'm also really looking forward to the new and last Doctor Who episode on Saturday.**

**Don't forget to review, because they make me happy. And happiness leads to me writing lots and lots.**

**Rea**


	7. Chapter 7 - Rules of Torchwood

**AN: Enjoy a short original chapter.**

**(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) 6th September (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)**

The day after the 'sex gas incident', as it quickly became known, Lucy gestured for Gwen to join her on the shooting range. Gwen followed her warily, they were silent until Lucy sat down at her new desk - which Ianto had somehow found the time to sort out.

"After yesterday" Lucy said getting straight to the point. "do you still want to stay in Torchwood?"

"Yeah." Gwen breathed in response. "I'd been thinking about it all of last night - I think I worried Rhys. But I do, I want to stay. People might have died but we saved Carys, it was worth it."

"18" Lucy said and Gwen just stared at her so Lucy expanded on her point "18 people died because you broke the ship and let the creature out. That's one hell of a first day"  
>"It was an accident." The Welshwoman tried to defend herself "And Jack said one of the soldiers probably..."<p>

"Except they didn't and you did. Can you really stay in Torchwood knowing that those 18 deaths are your fault and that they are just the beginning? Because if you stay, there is no doubt about it; the continual list of people you couldn't save. The names you will never forget and the names you wished you knew. This job will break you - it breaks everyone - what's important is how you get back together. I'm not telling you this to scare you." She continued in a softer voice, seeing the fear and anger in her co-worker's eyes. "It's important that you know and understand what this job entails. You accepted Jack's offer without knowing what it meant and now you do. Do you still want to work at Torchwood? Don't answer straight away, think about it" She passed Gwen a pair of ear protectors. "I'm going to shoot while you think, come and interrupt when you know the answer."

Lucy got out of her chair and walked into the main range, grabbing the rifle and made a mental note of the time, 9:23. She put her own ear protectors on and started to shoot.

It was only when she registered a body next to her that she stopped. Gwen smiled at her and nodded, Lucy looked at the clock again; 10:01. "Good, you actually thought about it."

"You in?" Lucy said dissembling the rifle and starting to clean it out.

"I'm in."

"Right. You've got to go see Owen. You're due a medical. Patient/Doctor confidentiality still applies to us even though we regularly break data protection acts as well as other things. So Owen will be the only one to know anything unless he feel that you are not safe in the field and then you has to tell Jack that you are grounded although he won't tell him why. Welcome to Torchwood Agent Cooper."

Lucy smiled and stuck out her hand, Gwen shook it "Thank you Agent Smith."

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"What are you doing?" Gwen asked once Owen finally released her from his clutches and completed her medical. Lucy absent-mindedly noticed that Gwen's hadn't taken as long as hers had - although Owen did have access to her previous doctors records and wasn't checking for differences between the biology of the two worlds. She made a mental note to speak to the doctor about that as he hadn't brought it up again apart from the 'ahhhh' sounds he had originally made and continued to make every month when he insisted in removing more of her blood.

"Writing the rules of Torchwood for you." Lucy replied to Gwen. "I've also put a copy of the handbook on your desk. Technically you need to read that before you can go out on the field. But Jack doesn't care when you read it, as long as you do it in your first month. Plus there's the personnel file you need to fill out."

Gwen looked over and saw a fairly thick book and some paper on top of her otherwise empty desk. It hadn't taken long for Lucy to clear it out for the newest agent to use, although Lucy hadn't cleared the locked cupboard yet.

"So you're giving me rules on top of the handbook?"

"Hmm..." Lucy nodded biting the end of the Biro as she thought. "These are more rules for Torchwood 3 and the hub and not Torchwood in general. The handbook is standard issue for all agents but written by 1."

"1 is London right?" Gwen asked trying to remember what Jack said

"Yeah, but I wouldn't mention it around here." Lucy quickly scribbled another rule down. "Jack was never their biggest fan, and then they caused the Battle of Canary Wharf to happen. Plus Ianto worked there before he transferred here after the battle."

"What rules have you got so far?" Owen asked walking over to join them.  
>"Just the bog standard ones" Lucy replied, "I figure we can add to them when needed."<br>She started to read from the list in front of her.

"Rule 1. Don't mess with the rift.

Rule 2. - Don't touch the coffee machine. Not only is it Ianto's and sacred but if you break it we'll be on decaf or worse - Starbucks!"

Owen, Tosh and Lucy shivered in disgust at the thought of being denied Ianto's precious coffee.

"Rule 3. Rule number 1 - The Doctor lies."

"Sorry." Owen interrupted "Rule 3 is rule number 1 and about someone who is technically Torchwood's number 1 enemy but as far as you and Jack are concerned is our best friend?"

"Yup" Lucy nodded, "Got a problem with that?"

"No, I just... I wanted to check."

"Rule 4 - no taking any of the big weapons. They are my toys."  
>"Have you actually used the word toys?" Tosh asked, she stopped pretending to not listen and span her chair round to face them.<p>

"Err..." Lucy glanced down to look, "yeah?" She looked slightly awkward before shrugging

"Only in Torchwood could those weapons be called toys." Tosh sighed, "and only you. What else have you got?"  
>"Rule 5 - No bringing people back to life."<p>

"Understandable, what with what it did to Suzie." Gwen agreed

"Rule 6 - If you ever accidentally knock out a plug to any computer - especially Tosh's - then the excuse 'we were having fun, lighten up a bit' is not good enough."

Tosh frowned at the idea of anyone knocking out the plug to any of her computers and Owen could see that the comment was directed at him.

"Rule 7 - If you ever get Tosh angry enough that she starts speaking Japanese, you're on your own. None of us are helping you although if you give us money we will go and get the chocolate cake while you get on your knees and beg"

Tosh blushed slightly at the reference to the last time she had properly lost her temper, but didn't say anything else.

"Rule 8 - Never ask Jack why, or for proof behind any of his stories." Lucy looked up, "That's all I've got so far. Like I said I figure we can add to them as and when we need to. Oh Rule 9 - If the Doctor ever does appear don't arrest him."

"Rule 10" Owen said "listen to the medic." Lucy scribbled it down,

"What about you Tosh anything you want to add?"

Tosh thought about it for a minute before taking the pen and paper and saying as she wrote.

"Rule 11 - Lucy is not allowed near any technology without my prior permission and cheat sheet." Lucy laughed.

"I'm not that bad."

"Yes." Owen said with a laugh as well, "you really are."  
>"I can work a computer to do all the normal stuff." She pointed out, "just not Torchwood normal"<p>

"Which is why I need to write you a cheat sheet for everything."

"Well in which case." Lucy took the paper back and wrote on it again. "Rule 12 - if you want to use anything more than the standard stun gun and a .45 in the field you need to train for at least an hour a week with that weapon, and log it as well. If the training isn't logged I'm not letting you take it out of the hub."  
>"Don't get too big for your boots, you're not weapons specialist yet." Jack said as he walked over to join them. He had seen them all talking and wanted to know what was going on.<p>

"I've got one month left." Lucy replied, "That rule can just be suspended until then. Unless you think I should write it off all together?"

"The rule's fine I just don't want you getting too big headed." Jack laughed. "Rule 13 - No taking alien items out of the hub." Lucy diligently wrote it but still complained.

"That's in the handbook. These are supposed to be things that aren't but that people should know."  
>"It's always worth reminding people." Jack said sternly.<p>

"Rule 14" Lucy said thinking of another one, "say please and thank you to Ianto. He doesn't have to make you coffee so nicely, at all hours of the day and night."

"He's the tea-boy." Owen complained loudly.

"He's a human being." Lucy countered, "Manners never hurt anyone and like I said just because he has to make the coffee doesn't mean it needs to be anything other than mud."

"Are you finished for now?" Jack asked and both Lucy and Owen knew that he meant both the argument, which was becoming more and more common, and the list of rules.

"Seems good enough." Tosh shrugged, "as long as we can add to it."

"I'll stick it up on the wall on the inside of the tourist office, that way you see it every morning and you can see if anyone has added anything to it." Jack took the list off Lucy. "Owen, you can get started on the research on the weevils, Tosh you've got your rift prediction program to work on, Lucy you can continue on your weapons research project and Gwen I need you to fill out paperwork. Lucy have you got her shooting yet?"

Lucy shook her head, "I thought you might want to do that."

"Brilliant" Jack grinned at them, "Gwen once you've read through the handbook and settled in a bit more I'll get you on the range. Now you've all finished writing rules for this place perhaps you could get on with your jobs."

They nodded and went back to their desks, Lucy unlocked the cabinet she had put the information in that she was researching and carried it down to her new desk. Ianto promised her that within a week or so he would have set up a small office separate from the range so she could work while the others were busy using it.

Lucy smiled to herself, turned on her ipod, grabbed the file on the top and got to work.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: Only just realised it was Friday so panic update. Hope you enjoy this short chapter about how the team work and interact.**

**Please don't forget to review, I know people are reading it.**

**Rea**


	8. Chapter 8 - Ghost Machine

**A/N: Enjoy Ghost Machine**

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) 10th September (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Jack called Lucy over to his office, she shrugged and put down the file she was writing up again - water damage and bad handwriting was a terrible mix - and walked over to his office. Jack shut the door behind her.

"What's up?" Lucy asked slightly worried, Gwen had been with the team for just over a week now and although she was still technically the Welshwoman's mentor she had taken a step or two back.

"Ianto's been making me do my paperwork. It's a pain in the ass but I have found out some interesting things," Jack started "for example it turns out you are due a holiday. You've been working for Torchwood for three months and have only had 8 days off in the entire time you've been here."

Lucy shrugged uncomfortably,

"It's not the kind of job that lends itself to days off and I always seem to have stuff to do. I'm training, or working on my personal projects or we've got an emergency and I'm in the field, or its just normal stuff with the weevils or..."

"You need to take some time off." Jack insisted her as he interrupted. "I understand why you don't want it, because if you take time off you'll be a normal person and it'll hit home that you are in a different universe."

"I know I'm in a different universe." Lucy said rolling her eyes, "Living in a TV show does make it rather obvious, although we've only had two episodes so far."

"That's something I want to discuss as well." Jack agreed, "But you're straying from the point. You've been displaced and you are burying yourself in work so you don't have to think about it. Unfortunately for you I'm not going to let you do that any longer. You've got a week of enforced holiday and UNIT are expecting you this weekend before you take it."

"Why am I going to UNIT?" Lucy asked worried, "They haven't found out about me have they? They don't want to run tests or try and find out the future?"

"Nothing like that." Jack said calming her down. "It's just they've got some different alien weapons to us and as you are Torchwood's official weapons specialist I thought you might want to go have a look. They're giving you free access to their shooting range for 48 hours." Lucy's eyes widened as she realised what Jack was saying.

"I got the promotion, but I haven't done everything you wanted me too yet."

"You deserve it, just keep working on it, we both know you'll get there." Jack laughed, "Although I'm not sure what the Doctor will say, you idolise him and yet you not only work for Torchwood but you are our weapons specialist as well."

"He'd look at me disappointingly and make some disparaging comment, probably switch my gun for a banana." Lucy replied automatically "And then he'd find a great injustice that needed fixing and forget all about it, until I saved his life with one of my weapons."

"Probably" Jack agreed, "You sound like you've thought about it."

"I've just watched far too much Doctor Who." Lucy countered. "So am I really getting to play with UNIT's toys?"

"You'll be supervised obviously, it'll be minimal but it will be there." He said, "Go have fun. I realised this was the only way I could make you take longer off work."

"You do know Ianto is due a holiday as well." Lucy said suddenly realising something, "Since I've started he's taken less than me off. He just fixes the paperwork to look like he has. It's not like any of you guys notice him - he just blends into the background."

"I'll look into it." Jack promised. He poured himself a drink and spoke again, "But before you get ready for your time off there is something else I want to talk about - your knowledge." Lucy nodded.

"I knew you would want this conversation at some point."

"I've not pressed you on how much you know or when you know it but we need to lay down some rules. For a start when are you going to tell Gwen?" Lucy shrugged looking everywhere apart from at Jack.

"I dunno. I don't really want to. I mean it doesn't make any difference because I'm not stupid enough to use this information to try and change everything and I like the fact that she doesn't know, makes me feel a bit normal."

"She needs to be told at some point."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Fine! But not for a while yet, see if she can work it out - or at least work out that something is wrong. I just don't see why she has to know."

"Because no matter how much you may or may not like her she is your team mate and you have to work together in the field and therefore you have to be able to trust each other."

"Ok, I'll tell her on election day, end of series 1. Will that do?"

"It'll do for now. That's _the_ latest you can tell her." Jack countered, "I'm not happy about it but if you don't tell her after that I will. You've got till the new Prime Minister steps into office."

"You'll have other things to worry about." Lucy muttered remembering how the Master was going to treat the immortal captain throughout the year that never was. On election day Captain Jack Harkness would be more concerned with the Doctor, the Master and Martha Jones than Lucy needing to tell Gwen the truth.

"I don't want to know. What we need to do is work out how we deal with an episode?"  
>"Well I'm doing my best not to change anything, I could have said I knew the name of the human the sex gas had possessed and that would have sped everything up. We would have found Carys that night and could have potentially worked out a way to save her without her having killed anyone else."<br>"So why didn't you?"

"Because I don't know that impact that will have on the world! I'm not the Doctor, I can't see what is a fixed point and what isn't. He said that the worst thing is an ordinary human being alive when they shouldn't be - dammit the reapers nearly destroyed all of time when Rose saved her dad. So I figure the best thing to do is to act as though every episode is a fixed point in time."

"_Can_ you do that?" Jack asked, he had to be sure that nothing was going to go seriously wrong.

"I can do my damned best." She said harshly before sagging slightly. "I don't know what I can and can't do, so I figure it's best to act as though I can't do anything. It's not as though I can just ask him."

They sat in silence for a while, both thinking about the Doctor and trying to guess what he would say about this situation.

Lucy was the first to speak, "So, I'm guessing that as I've got this promotion and you are sending me off to play at UNIT you have no plans to get rid of me; due to the circumstances, I mean."  
>"Nothing at present" Jack smirked, "Just try not to destroy all of time and everything will be fine."<br>"I'll try." Lucy replied, "Sooo... UNIT? What do they know about me?"

"They have your official existence but nothing about how you appeared here. That's not leaving Torchwood - ever."

"Thank you." She spoke sincerely. Lucy knew that although the Doctor preferred UNIT over Torchwood - mainly because of the Brig and that he had worked for them in their golden years - UNIT was still not above the idea of locking people away forever or running tests on people with 'abnormalities'. She also knew that she would be considered an 'abnormality' and her knowledge a potential threat.

"No one hurts any member of my team apart from me." Jack said equally seriously but with a twinkle in his eye. "Anyway, the minute you leave this office you are officially on holiday. UNIT will be picking you up are 6am on Friday and give you lodging until they drop you back off at 9pm Sunday evening. And then you can come back to work on Wednesday."

Lucy made to complain but Jack just looked at her and she knew that she wasn't going to win. "Fine" She sighed. "I'll go grab my bag. See you in a week."  
>"Have fun at UNIT and don't let them push you around. You're Torchwood's weapons specialist, remind them of that every now and again - you have just as much right to be there as they do if not more."<p>

"See you Jack." Lucy said with a laugh, "I'll make sure to send you a picture of their faces when I beat them in a shooting competition."

Lucy walked out of the office with a smile, Ianto was waiting near her desk with a mug of coffee. "Wasn't sure if it was good or bad news and thought you might need a pick-me-up." He said as he passed her the mug.

"Thanks Yan." She replied as she started to tidy her stuff away. "Mixture of good and bad - I'm on enforced holiday leave. Jack seems to think I spend too much time here."  
>"You do." Ianto interrupted wryly. "Almost as much as me, and I have a reason to be spending my spare time here; you don't."<p>

"Yeah well, he's kicking me out for a week, but I get to spend the weekend at UNIT playing on their range with all their lovely toys. It's only fitting for Torchwood's weapons specialist to have an idea of what they have and how to use it."  
>"Congratulations." He said, understanding that this meant that she got the promotion she wanted<p>

"Thanks." Lucy grinned, "Feels like I actually belong here."

"You've always belonged here."

"You know what I mean."

"Oi Tea-boy!" Owen called over "Stop gossiping and come and help me over here. I need another pair of hands."  
>"Duty calls. I'll see you later, I'll walk home and leave you the car" Lucy said as she grabbed her bag and left the hub. She spent some time just enjoying the view of Cardiff bay on a normal morning - cold and windy and still somehow beautiful - before walking back to the flat that she and Ianto shared.<p>

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Lucy walked back into the tourist office with Ianto a week later, looking forward to going back to work. Her weekend at UNIT had given her some new ideas of training practice and competitions between the team to make sure that their skills didn't drop.

Ianto had informed her of the incident with the ghost-machine that happened while she wasn't there. Although she wanted to come in and help, Jack had Ianto tell her that she still wasn't allowed into work and he would get her arrested for breaking into government property if she tried and she knew he wasn't joking.

As she went to walk into the hub Lucy spotted a new addition to her list of rules, written in Jack's handwriting.

_'Rule 15 - NEVER press flashing buttons on alien technology if I haven't cleared it for use_

_'Rule 16 - You MUST have 1 day off for every 7 days working (Lucy and Ianto this is for you), end of the world excepting.'_

She laughed at the idea of Jack holding back on his rant to Owen and just scribbling on the list instead, she took a pen out of her pocket and wrote another couple of rules she had thought of while she was on 'holiday'

_'Rule 17 - NO PLAYING WITH TIME TRAVEL_

_Rule 17a - Unless you are with the Doctor in which case have fun but leave us a note to let us know where you are going'_

Ianto smirked when he saw what she added. "You ready to get back to work again?" he asked as they walked down the corridor between the tourist office and the hub

Lucy nodded, "You know I am. Although I am kinda glad I missed that episode. It's fairly dull."

"I doubt Owen or Gwen thought that."

"Oh well." She shrugged, "They're hardly going to hold it against me, it's not the worst this series - that's later on. But come on you have to admit from the point of view of a story it's not the most exciting. You went to _Splott_ - or Sploe however you want to pronounce it. Also I know you Ianto Jones, you've lived in Cardiff all your life, you call it Splott just like everyone else, you just wanted to annoy them." Ianto just smirked.

"I will admit that it doesn't make the best story."

"But you still make the best coffee and you want to make it for me now as a 'welcome back to work' present." Lucy said jokingly

"I make a coffee as soon as I get in anyway. And it's not like I haven't been making it at home"

"It's not the same though."

The cog door opened and neither were surprised to see that apart from Jack they were the first ones in.

"Yes I'll make you some coffee" Ianto sighed, he knew that Lucy wasn't going to let it go. "You go and fill Jack in and get the official story and I'll prepare my best coffee for you."

"Thanks Yan." Lucy grinned as she walked over to Jack's office, "see you in a bit."

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter. I decided to leave Ghost Machine because it's an important mmoment for Gwen and I couldn't work out how to do it with Lucy in. It was too Gwen-centric.**

**But next week is part 1 of 2 for Cyberwoman and Lucy makes a BIG impact in that.**

**Please Review *puppy dog eyes***

**Rea**


	9. Chapter 9 - Cyberwoman, Part 1

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) 25th September (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

They all got back to the hub without a problem, Jack giving orders as they got in so they could find out about this 'supposed UFO', Lucy pulled Jack aside.

"I know this one, and you're going to hate me and I'm sorry in advance. I'm really sorry."

Jack looked at her quizzically but didn't say anything as at that minute the power started to drain.

"What's that?" Gwen asked.

Tosh looked at her computer for the answer, "Internal power drain."

"What's causing it?"

"Something big to drain that amount of power." Jack said seriously "Tosh, run a system diagnostic."

Ianto turned round and Lucy could see the worry in his face.

"Actually." He said and she winced, was she the only one who could hear that Ianto was lying? It seemed so obvious to her. "We've been having generator problems all evening. I was down there earlier. A couple of bits of cabling has come loose, thought I'd fixed it. Let me have another look."

"Fine go check" Jack replied and Ianto walked off to deal with it. Jack looked at Lucy who steadfastly refused to meet his eyes and had sat at her desk pretending to start to get on with some work.

"Want some help?" Gwen offered but Lucy spoke before he could.  
>"It's ok, I'll come help you Ianto."<p>

"It's fine." He tried to shove her off

"I know, I'll still come help though." She jumped up from her chair and followed him as quickly as she could, she knew that if she stayed in the main area it wouldn't take long before Jack could get the whole truth from her.

They ran down to where they knew Lisa was and Lucy flinched at the sight of Dr. Tenzaki on the floor.

"What happened?" Ianto gasped

"His upgrade failed." The cyberwoman replied and Lucy knew that although there was the slightest possibility of curing her before, Lisa was now completely gone.

"Was it an accident?" Ianto asked before he realised what had been said, "Tell me you didn't do this."

"I wanted to repay him for helping me, by removing the weaknesses of his humanity."

"I'll deal with the body." Lucy said pulling off her hoodie and throwing it into the corridor. "This way they won't see the blood on my t-shirt and these jeans are already blood stained. You talk to Lisa." She grabbed the legs of the body and pulled it towards one of the side rooms before running off to another room to get a body bag.

Ianto joined her as she was just finishing dealing with it.

"She didn't mean to do it, it's post-traumatic." He said in defence of what used to be his girlfriend.

"Ianto." Lucy said quietly, "She tried to upgrade him, he would have been screaming to be released. I don't think it's something you can do by accident."

"What do you know?" he replied angrily.

"I don't" She tried to pacify him, hating seeing him like this and hating the lie as she said it. "Listen I'll go clean up the blood from the floor, you just finish up here and pray that you are right."

"I am right."

"I hope so." And with that she left taking a mop and quickly getting the new blood off the floor so it obvious, as she did so the light's started flickering again. She could hear the rest of the team talking in her ear, but that soon died again and she remembered that the power drain was blocking the headset signal too.

Lucy quickly put the mop away and walked back down the corridor to get her hoodie, only to find Owen holding it.

"Ah."

"I'm sure you've got a brilliant reason as to why your top is covered in blood. When it wasn't about 5 minutes ago."

She shook her head, unsure of what to say but knowing that they needed to get out of the corridor.

"We should go."

"We're going to see what's causing the drain and you are going to stay there and wait for Jack to come down so you can tell him the whole story. Actually," he thought better of it, "you can open the door and go in first."

Lucy sighed and opened the door the three of them walking in with their guns held high.

"What is it?" Gwen asked as Owen shook his head in disbelief and anger.

"NO NO NO. These things brought down Torchwood 1, they were all destroyed." He turned his gun on Lucy, "What the hell is it doing in our basement?"

"Just tell me what it does." Gwen said

"It's what's left of a cyberman conversion unit." Lucy said quietly, "a modified one but one nonetheless."

Jack suddenly started speaking in their ears.

"If I don't hear something soon I'm coming down there."

"Jack, it's Gwen. The comms dropped out. We're back online now."

"Any sign of Ianto or Lucy?"

"No sign of Ianto, but we found Lucy covered in blood and parts of a cyber conversion unit fully powered up and working. A modified one apparently" Owen hissed

"I want you back up here immediately. Lucy you'd better have a damn good explanation for this and telling me sorry half an hour ago does not count."

"We still haven't found..." Owen started but the CyberLisa stopped his thought in its tracks by hitting him on the back of the head.

Lucy pulled her gun out and pointed it at Lisa, Gwen did the same thing and spoke to Jack telling him it was a code 0 – invasion. Lucy decided to try and speak to Lisa, it recognised Ianto it might recognise her.

"Hi Lisa," She tried, "it's Lucy remember do you remember me? We came to see if you were ok."

"Lucy" The cold electric voice said, "Ianto's friend?"

"That's it, I'm glad you remember me. Ianto's told me so many stories, like when you had to share that sleeping bag while you were camping. How about you just let us go?"

"Lucy what the hell are you doing?" Gwen hissed

"Trying to save your life." She replied, "I may not like you but I didn't think you wanted to end up on the conversion table, and I don't really either."

Lisa walked forward and Gwen spoke, "We don't mean you any harm, but come any closer and I'll shoot." The cyberwoman just took a step forward and knocked the gun out of Gwen's hand and held Lucy by her neck.

"Friend of Ianto I shall thank you by changing you first, you will be like me."

"Gwen for fucks sake run." Lucy hissed as Lisa threw her into the conversion unit. Lisa turned it on and Lucy screamed at the sight of the knives above her head, she shut her eyes but she could still hear the sounds and feel pain from the amount of electricity needed to run the table. She couldn't help but remember that when Lisa had been asked about what she remembered her answer was pain, and she knew that if Jack didn't arrive in time it was only going to get worse.

"Put your hands in the air, turn around and face me." She heard Jack shout, "You're a girl." He added surprised, Lucy opened her eyes to see him and then shut them again instantly.

Lisa stepped forward and Lucy could hear her walk away and an argument between Jack, Gwen and Ianto.

"FOR FUCKS SAKE IANTO SHE THREW ME IN HERE BECAUSE SHE RECOGNISED ME AND WANTED ME TO BE LIKE HER. SHUT THIS DAMN THING OFF BEFORE I AM!" She shouted causing the argument to stop. Gwen tried shooting the control unit but it failed so Jack ordered Tosh to turn the whole power system off. Lucy sighed with relief when it worked and gingerly got out of the table.

"Lucy and Ianto, hands above your head and walk in front of me. Give Gwen your gun." Jack ordered.

"For pity's sake Jack." Gwen tried, "Lucy's just got out of this thing."

"That's an order!"

Lucy gently kicked her gun across the floor to Gwen, it had fallen when Lisa had picked her up and moved her hands above her head like Jack had ordered. Ianto threw his gun to the ground and did the same. They both walked in silence down the corridor side by side.

Owen had woken up by this point and had his gun trained on Lucy while, Jack's was trained on Ianto.

"What?" Tosh asked as she saw them walk up.

Lucy gave her a sad smile and got onto her knees in front of Jack as he ordered them too.

"Did you know that thing was down there?" Jack asked them both.

"I put her down there." Ianto said.

"Yes." Lucy said simply.

"You hid a Cyberman within Torchwood and you didn't tell us?" Jack's gun was now at Ianto's forehead. "What else are you keeping from us?"

"Like you care." Ianto replied and Lucy could hear that he'd almost completely given up. "I clear up your shit. No questions asked and that's the way you like it. When did you last ask me anything about my life?" Jack lowered his gun and put the safety back on. "Her name is Lisa." He continued, "She's my girlfriend."

"Why didn't you tell us? We could have helped you" Gwen tried.

Lucy was going to stay quiet but she couldn't help herself. "This is Torchwood Gwen. Things like Lisa are what we're supposed to get rid of."

"Why would I tell you about her? Lucy already knew it wasn't like I'd told her."

"A little loyalty perhaps?" Owen offered

"My loyalty's to her." Ianto replied "She worked for Torchwood, she was caught up in battle. I owe it to Lisa, we owe it to her to find a cure."

"Ianto believe me there is no cure. Those who are converted stay that way, your girlfriend isn't the exception" Jack said,

"You can't know that for sure."

"Look," Jack sighed, "you need to know what is happening here because this is where these things start. Small decisions that become mass slaughter. These creatures take a foothold by exploiting human weakness, then they take a base, rebuild their forces, and before you know it the cyber race is spreading out across the universe. Erasing worlds, assimilating populations, all because of the tiny beginnings here." He looked at Lucy, "and Lucy will already know this."

"No." Ianto looked at Lucy who hung her head, "You said..."

"I said there may be a smallest possibility and it would be stupidly difficult but that I would help you in any way I could." She said quietly before looking up at him "Ianto..."

"I trusted you." He said angrily before standing up "You're not listening any of you, the conversion was never completed."

"There is no turning back for her now, she already tried to convert Lucy. Do you think she's just going to stop there? She's a cyberman, cyberwoman, there is no turning back – not now"

"I'm not giving up on her. I love her, can you understand that Jack? Haven't you ever loved anyone?"

"Ianto please" Lucy said quietly from the floor, where she was still sitting on her knees with her hands behind her head.

"You lied to me." Ianto hissed, "You said you didn't know anything but all this time. I don't want to talk to you and when this is over you need to find somewhere else to live."

"I'm sorry." Lucy said again, "I had to try and help. I wanted it to work, I thought maybe with two of us..."

"You lied!" He spat at her and Lucy had no reply to this, it was true so she just hung her head in shame.

Jack walked away and Owen spoke.

"There is no way we are going to get the weapon store open and we can't get down to Lucy's office either."

"It's going to take 6 hours to get the power back online" Tosh added and Jack sighed.

"Let me talk to her. I can still save her, save all of us. She's not a monster" Ianto spoke again, begging to be allowed to give Lisa a second chance.

"Lucy tried that." Gwen said, feeling nothing but pity and fear. They all looked at Lucy who hadn't moved from her position kneeling on the ground.

"She recognised me, and then tried to thank me by converting me." She looked up and caught Jack's eye, he signalled that she should stand up. She got up carefully and walked over to Ianto forcing him to look at her. "Ianto I don't think it's going to work, she may have all her memories but that happens. They know who they were when they were human and the only person I have ever known fight it was Yvonne Heartman – who killed some while in her cyber-form, talking about Queen and Country. I don't know how she did it but she did. The point is, they know who they were and they know they can use it. Lisa's body may be human – mostly – but her mind is all cyber."

"You're still lying" he replied, "that's all you know how to do isn't it. Lie to everyone around you. Does anyone know the truth about you? No one here does, you're just a geek with nothing and no one in this world and nothing to get back to in your original one either. You've got no friends and no family."  
>They all knew Ianto had crossed the line and he knew it too the minute he said it but he refused to take it back. Lucy slapped him, hard across the face and hissed back at him.<p>

"I risked everything I have here – and you're right it isn't much – for you and for Lisa even though I knew that it was next to impossible to save her. I could have pretended I simply didn't know and let it happen. But I didn't, I tried to help you because I thought you deserved it. Because you deserve a thank you for putting up with their shit and you need something to remind you that the world has beauty in it as well. I didn't have to help you Ianto Jones but I wanted to. But don't you ever mention my family again. Ever. You have no idea what I've lost, in coming to this world and even before that. Don't you dare to assume anything about me."

Jack moved so as to get between them. "Ok that's enough. Right now we have enough to deal with without fighting between ourselves. Ok?" He looked at both of them and they both nodded.

"Good."

The CyberLisa walked into the main area of the hub and Ianto broke away from the group trying to talk to her. Lucy tried to move to pull him back but Jack stopped her.

"Lisa." He said "It's me."

"Jack let me go." Lucy said struggling in his hold.

"You can't just let him..." Gwen added but he shut them both up with a look, wanting to know what was going to happen.

"The army will be rebuilt from here. This building is suitable."

Jack let Lucy go as he spoke but she was almost frozen to ground in fear.

"Who are you?"

"Human.2"

"No!" Ianto moaned in despair and took another step forward, "Lisa."

Jack ignored him and continued to mock her.

"So how come you look like Human.1?" He asked sarcastically

"I do not understand."

"Look at yourself" He goaded "go ahead."

She turned and looked at her reflection in the glass and Ianto took another step forward, and another.

"Remember Lisa" He continued to try "Remember who you are."

"The upgrade is incomplete"

"You're still human"

"I am..." She struggled to find the word "disgusting."

"Ianto please move." Lucy begged but he just ignored her and continued to walk towards what used to be his girlfriend.

"I have... I am..." CyberLisa – as Lucy has decided to name her – was still struggling to work out what she was. "wrong"

"We can help you." And he took another step, he was now within touching distance and Lucy was now continually muttering under her breath

"...move, come on, move Ianto, for fucks sake move..."

"I must start again. Upgrade properly"

"For God's sake, have you heard yourself?" Another step "Lisa, please. I brought you here to heal you, so we could be together."

She turned to face him.

"Together. Yes. Transplant my brain into your body. The two of us, together, fused. We will be one, complete person. Isn't that what love is?"

"No" Ianto said quietly shaking his head, Lucy and the others could see that he was starting to realise that this wasn't the woman he loved anymore.

"Then we are not compatible." She grabbed him by the throat and threw him onto the floor in the centre of the hub and the circle that the rest of the team had started to make. Guns were once again raised and they were all pointing at CyberLisa. Lucy wiped the tears her eyes and shoved everything apart from anger to the back of her mind – she didn't have the time to be sentimental now, she had a job to do.

Lisa sent a bolt of electricity towards Jack's gun and it travelled up his arm causing him to drop it instantly.

"Code nine manoeuvres – go!" He shouted, they all started to run to their positions, grabbing anything they could use as a weapon but Gwen seemed frozen to the floor in fear, just like Lucy had been. Except Lucy had forced herself to get over it.

"Gwen move" Jack shouted but she didn't.

"Oi Lisa" Owen shouted trying to get her attention, it worked but now Lisa was coming towards Lucy and Owen.

"Well at least we know she still responds to her name" Lucy said sarcastically as the two started to run again towards the office.

"She's coming after us." Gwen said watching from the window.  
>"Well there's a surprise." Owen said mockingly<br>Could you be any less helpful?" She hissed

"I just helped you escape." Owen retaliated

"Shut up both of you!" Jack shouted and they did, instantly everyone looking to Jack for orders, "Ok this is a fight to the death. We do whatever is necessary to destroy her, ok?" They all nodded and Jack looked straight at Lucy. "OK?"

"Not a problem Jack. She's not human, she might have been once but not anymore."

Jack put something down on the table slid it over to Tosh.

"What's this?"

"Something Suzie scavenged last year. She claimed it could open any lock in 45 seconds. I want you out the exit gates up the emergency stairs to the reception"

"She'll never open that door without power it weighs a ton" Owen said

"Besides, I'm not leaving you here." Tosh argued

"Just do as I say! All of you!" He ran over to the wall, "once in reception, the panel on the wall, pull it out. Take circuit 357 from the main system. Patch it to these. There should be enough power in there for what we need. Once the main circuit goes live, get out. Meet us by the water tower. GO!" Tosh nodded at all of them and gave them a small smile before leaving.

"You three, find anything that vaguely resembles a weapon."

"Autopsy room." Owen suggested, "there should be some lethal stuff there."

"Ok. Lucy, you're going to cover those two. You're the only one with a weapon right now. Understood. Once they've got weapons you join me and we go to Ianto."

"What are you going to do?" Gwen asked

"Buy you some more time." He replied. "Go!"

They ran, Lucy making sure that she was between them and CyberLisa at all times, her gun in her hand with the safety off ready to shoot in an instant. She hadn't killed anything before – not like this – but it didn't matter. While Lisa still looked like that she could cope with it, but Lucy knew it wouldn't last for long and was starting to psyche herself up for what she was going to do later. She had decided how to deal with the cyberwoman when she had first appeared her, but actually having to do it was something completely different.

Lisa came after Jack who had started in their direction.

"I'm sorry for what they did to you. But it all ends here!" he said. Lisa didn't agree and grabbed him by the neck, simultaneously strangling and electrifying him.

"JACK!" Gwen shouted and tried to reach him, Lucy forcibly grabbed her and shoved her back towards Owen.

"You still need to get those weapons. I'm currently the only one with a gun who stands any chance at all." She looked over to Tosh who had stopped what she was doing. "Tosh. You need to get to the reception, whatever you hear happening down here keep moving and don't look back."

Tosh nodded and opened the door and started to run, quickly shutting the door behind her. She steadfastly followed Jack's orders and Lucy's reminder – not looking back at any point, scared that if she did she would stop.

Jack breathed and stood up.

"How did he survive that?" Owen asked still holding Gwen back. For a moment he had almost forgotten about Jack and his ability, adrenaline did weird things to the mind.

"Not now Owen." Lucy replied, "You need weapons." Both Gwen and Owen nodded and ran into the med area, trying to find anything that would help.

"Is that all you got?" Jack asked. "I'm not so easily deleted." In response Lisa just did the same thing, once more sending him to the ground.  
>Lisa started to walk away and Lucy knew it was up to her, she had to give the others time.<p>

"Lisa!" She shouted before CyberLisa could attempt to open the door and follow Tosh. "Come on, it's me. Lucy with the music." The cyberwoman turned to face her instead and she shouted down towards the autopsy room. "Err... you two either need to hurry up or hide. And quick. I'll try and distract her. I know this place, she doesn't."

"Don't be stupid Lucy" Owen replied. "She'll kill you."

"Yeah I worked that bit out thanks." Lucy gave a harsh laugh. "You two need to hide, I'll err..." She shot a couple of time at Lisa but it only slowed her down. "Sod it. I'm hiding too."

She ran down to join them and watched as they climbed into one of the body storage cupboards. "Keep your guns trained on the door." She said to them.  
>"Yeah, I have been here longer than you. "Owen replied "I do have a bit of understanding of how these things work. I was here while Torchwood 1 collapsed."<br>"Good for you. We can discuss all this later but right now Jack named me as your cover so that's what I'm going to do." She climbed into the one next to them "Good luck"  
>"You too" Gwen said and they both shut the door.<p>

**(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)**

**A/N: So here is the first half of cyberwoman. This was the first episode of Lucy I ever wrote (two and a half years ago), I hope you enojoyed.**

**Please don't forget to review, I respond to each one personally.**

**Rea**


	10. Chapter 10 - Cyberwoman, Part 2

**Welcome to Part 2 of Cyberwoman.**

**(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)**

Lucy laid there in silence, trying to make her breathing as quiet as possible. All she could think about was Ianto's face when he found out that she had been lying to him and the despair when he knew that he couldn't save the woman she loved.

She would not have been able to say how long she was in the cupboard, waiting in silence, her gun pointed at the door ready to shoot the minute it was opened.

The silence was broken by the sound of a phone ringing. She could hear Owen and Gwen frantically trying to turn it off and the door open next to her. The minute she heard that she also scrambled out keeping her gun pointed at CyberLisa and more specifically the unprotected stomach.

"Turn it off!"

Lisa stalked after Gwen and Owen grabbed a knife from the side.

"Don't you touch her." He hissed, she walked forward to attack him instead and two things happened at once.

Lucy shot Lisa, the bullet going through the revealed flesh on her side, and Owen stabbed her in the stomach.

Lisa stumbled backwards into the wall and Lucy positioned herself between Owen, Gwen and the cyberwoman.

"What the hell was that?" Gwen asked

"What?"

"Snogging me!" She retaliated

"Last kiss for the condemned man." He replied and Lucy could see him give a small shrug out of the corner of her eye. "Little embarrassing given we haven't been killed. What? It's not like I fancy you or anything."

"I was on top of you. I could feel your hard-on" She replied

"Yeah... well you didn't exactly struggle did you?"

"Can you two shut up?" Lucy asked over her shoulder, "Owen don't snog her again she has a boyfriend. Gwen don't respond to his snog, you have a boyfriend. Happy now?"

Before they could respond Ianto ran in, he glared at Lucy who still had her gun trained on Lisa's body.  
>"Lisa" he breathed.<p>

"We had no choice Ianto." Owen said seeing that Lucy wasn't going to say anything. "It was kill or be killed"

He refused to look at them but jumped back when Lisa's eyes opened again, Lucy grabbed him and pulled him behind her. "You guys move. NOW! IANTO MOVE! RUN"

They all started to run out of the autopsy room, followed by Lisa who pulled the knife out of her body without any problem.

Jack was also running in the main area and they all moved towards him.

"You should be dead" Owen said

"I'm the stubborn type" He replied, grabbing a wielding torch and some sauce. He turned the torch on and held the flame in front of them.

Lisa continued to walk towards them

"This'll at least give you heart burn." Jack gloated at Lisa

"The power will run out. I can wait." She said in response.

"Jack stop this." Ianto said suddenly and Lucy sighed, she had thought he had worked it out. In fact she knew that he knew they had to kill her but the cyberwoman still had the face and body, at least partially, of the woman he loved. Ianto arguing and fighting against her when she was just trying to help, hurt and Lucy did her best to ignore it. She knew this would happen when she agreed to help and didn't tell him that she knew how it would end, and that it would not be pretty.  
>"Give her a chance to surrender, she can stay in the cells. We can reverse it."<p>

"I told you we're past that!" Jack said not turning round, "Hold him back." Owen and Gwen did so whilst Lucy refused to look at him and instead kept her gun poised to shoot. Ianto may not like it and he may always hate her for it, but there was nothing else she could do.

"What are you going to do?" Gwen asked

"You don't want to know." Lucy replied

"Just get Ianto on there and hold him." Jack added before looking at Lucy, "You ok?"

"I'm fine." She replied not letting any emotion into her voice, "Let's just do it."

He threw the sauce over Lisa and the two ran onto the paving slab.

"What is it?"

"BBQ sauce, so she knows what's for dinner" Lucy said void of emotion.

"NO!" Ianto had worked out what was going to happen. "You'll kill her"

"Come on Tosh." Jack mumbled playing with his wrist strap as Myfwany flew in. The slab began to rise and Ianto continued to struggle, Gwen and Owen held him back and Lucy steadfastly refused to look at him or the sight of the pterodactyl eating her dinner.

"You'll kill her. Have some fucking mercy"

"She's already dead." Jack replied and they were soon out in the open.

Tosh ran up to join them, and Lucy got herself ready to do what she had been psyching herself up to do all evening, whatever happened she couldn't let Ianto go back into the hub.

"It worked" Tosh said when she reached them. "What happened?"

"Don't ask" Jack replied as they all caught their breath and tried to start to get over what almost happened.

Ianto turned round and punched Jack.

"You could have saved her" He shouted as Gwen pulled him back, "you're worse than anything down there. One day I'll have the chance to save you and I'll watch you suffer and die. You're worse than any of the monster out there"

"It was the only thing that would stop her" Jack replied angrily "You and Lucy both let this thing free in the hub. But at least she knows that what she did was wrong, she was willing to die to stop her and protect her team-mates. You just continued to put them in danger."

Tosh tried to stop the argument so spoke, Lucy winced at what she was saying.

"Listen when I was in reception I managed to trip the lockdown timer. The power should be coming back on any second. We could get back in."

Ianto started to run and as Lucy was the only one expecting it she was the first one to follow him.

"IANTO!"

They were catching up with him.

"Ianto stop." Jack shouted

"She can't have survived that" Gwen tried.

"I used my initiative" Tosh was apologising. "I'm sorry."

"When I want you to think for yourself, I'll tell you" Jack snapped at her.

"Maybe if you'd told me your plan I wouldn't have done it." Tosh replied, "How was I supposed to know?"

They ran into the tourist office and Ianto pointed the gun he had grabbed from behind the desk at them.

"Ianto don't be stupid." Gwen said

"I've nothing left to lose" He replied and Lucy could feel herself break at that sentence. Ianto truly believed he had lost everything. She was reminded of the worst day in her life, which considering how bad her life had been was saying something.

"There is always something left to lose." Jack said and Lucy agreed with him, you could always find something, even the smallest thing, that you still had. The tiniest part of your life could give you enough hope to keep fighting through the dark.

"I'm going back in to save her." Ianto said "Anyone tries to stop me I'll shoot them."

"Ianto put the gun down" Gwen begged, Jack grabbed the gun and threw it on the floor as he shoved Ianto against the wall, and pointed his gun at Ianto's head.

"You make a threat like that, you'd better be prepared to follow it through. See? You disobey me now, I really will shoot you"

"Get off me." Ianto was struggling in the hold Jack had him in but was unable to get free.

"You want to go back in there? You go back in to finish the job."

Everyone complained at this but jack ignored them, Lucy however just checked her gun. And, upon seeing she had emptied it earlier, took the one off the floor that Jack had taken off Ianto.

"If she's still alive" Jack continued, "you execute her"

He turned Ianto round so he was facing them.

"No way" Ianto said quietly, refusing to let himself cry but they could see that he was breaking.

"You brought this down on us, you hid her. You hid yourself from us. Now it's time for you to stand as part of the team."

Lucy knew this was her cue and stepped forward.

"He wasn't the only one to hide her and he's definitely not the only one hiding himself, _Captain_." She said the last word mockingly and from the look on his face she knew he'd understood what she meant. He turned to face her but continued to keep his gun pointed at the Welshman.

"I'll deal with you later." He faced Ianto again, "The girl you loved has gone, your loyalty is to us now."

"He's not going back in there." Lucy said firmly as she took another step forward and was now next to Ianto. "I won't let him."

"He allowed the cybermen to have a foothold in this world again!"

"I know." She was as calm as she possibly could be, "and I know why you hate them more than any other creature in the universe apart from the daleks. I get that. I really do. But look at him Jack, he lost everything in Canary Wharf, everything he ever knew and you lost one person. Just one person who meant as much to you as Lisa does to him. He's not going back in there."

He pointed the gun at her, Gwen stepped forward to try and calm Jack down but he just shrugged her off.

"You do it or I'll execute all three of you myself."

"Ok" Lucy shrugged, and looked straight into Jack's eyes. "I will go in there and deal with whatever is left. But you cannot make Ianto go back in while I am. He will break and you will never fully get him back. Give me half an hour, I'll tidy up as well. Just keep him safe and I'm sorry. Really Jack, I am sorry."

With that she ran down the corridor pressing the button on the way to put the hub back into lock down. She turned to see the team on the other side of the door trying to get her to open it, everyone apart from Jack who just caught her eye and nodded. Lucy knew that it would take Tosh at least ten minutes to undo the lock down from where they were which gave her time to kill... to do what it was that was needed.

Her gun was held tightly in her hands as she walked down the stairs to where she knew Lisa would be.

"LISA!" She called and the take-away girl walked out of the basement. Lucy was suddenly unsure if she would be able to go through with this. Lisa looked human.

"Lucy. It's me, Lisa. I took this body for Ianto so we can be together again." Lucy's gun wavered and she knew Lisa had seen it. "He fought so hard for me so I had to fight for him. We'll be together forever, we can get upgraded together and you can join us."  
>"Sorry." Lucy said, her resolve hardening at the word 'upgraded'. Lisa might look human but she wasn't. She pulled the trigger, the girl's body collapsed and she shot again just to make sure.<p>

Now she had killed someone she felt part of her innocence leave for good and knew that there was no going back. Even if she was retconned she would always know there was blood on her hands.

She slid down the wall.

"I'm so so sorry," She swallowed tightly then forced herself to stand up and pulled her ipod out of her pocket.

While it played in her ears she walked up the stairs to get two body bags, one for the girl and one for Lisa, she had to get it done before Ianto saw it – she hadn't been lying. This truly would break him. She was already broken and didn't really exist in this world, Ianto had been brought to breaking point by Torchwood and by life but he could be mended. Jack would be able to mend him but if he saw what CyberLisa had done no matter how hard Jack tried he wouldn't be able to put the pieces back together. He would be destroyed for life even though he would wear a mask so the world never knew. She allowed that thought to overtake her as she got on with what needed to be done.

When the team ran into the hub she had put them into body bags and hidden the second one, she left the body bag with Lisa in by the door with the face still showing. She was dismantling the cyber conversion unit tears streamed down her face as she pulled it apart but she ignored them singing to herself along with the music.

"_...tears and fears and feeling proud_

_To say I love you right out load._

_And dreams and schemes and circus clowns._

_I've looked at life that way._

_But now old friends are acting strange,_

_They shake their heads._

_They say I've changed._

_Well something's lost but something's gained._

_From living every day._

_I've looked at life from both sides now,_

_From win and loose and still somehow_

_Its life's illusions I recall._

_I really don't know life at all..."_ the tears got too heavy to ignore now and she stopped pulling it apart to dry her eyes, before starting to sing again, needing the music to ignore the thoughts running around in her mind, to ignore what she had done.

Ianto went to the open body bag and pulled Lisa close, the words reverberating with him and he held his dead girlfriend. The rest of the team just watched the two knowing that there was nothing else they could have done.

"_I've looked at love from both sides now_

_from give and take and still somehow_

_it's loves illusions I recall_

_I really don't know love._

_Don't know love._

_Don't know love_

_At all"_

Ianto sobbed quietly and somehow that sound got through where the others hadn't, she turned round and spotted them as she pulled the head phones out her ears.

"Jack..."

He looked at her and her tear streamed face and strode foreword pulling her into a tight hug, his anger at them for hiding this dissipating instantly, for now anyway.

"Owen, Gwen can you finish breaking this for me? Tosh can you help Ianto back to his flat? I'll speak to him later." The rest of the team nodded and Ianto was pulled up by the smaller woman, and the two walked out. Jack held her close while Owen and Gwen got to work silently. When she had calmed down enough to talk properly she looked up.

"There's another body." Owen and Gwen stopped and Jack took an intake of breath and she continued, "I couldn't let Ianto know so I hid it. The pizza girl, Lisa killed her and then transplanted the brain. I shot her, twice. She wanted them to upgrade together, Icouldn'tletherandIknowshehadalreadybeenkilledbut..." She descended into sobs again and Jack stroked her hair and held her tight.

"It wasn't your fault." She heard Gwen make a sound of protest but she ignored it. "where is it?"

"Room after next" she whispered

"Go find it Gwen, and let Tosh know she has to set something up. Make sure Ianto doesn't know." Jack ordered, Gwen left and Owen tactfully left with her.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Jack. I know I could have done something, I should have done something but... she made him so happy and I had to try."

"I know" He replied, "come on, let's get you out of these blood stained clothes and I'll take you home."

Lucy started sobbing even harder.

"He's going to hate me. Jack, Ianto will hate me. I can't, I can't Jack. I want to go home."

"He won't hate you Lucy, don't be silly" Jack said soothingly trying to calm the distraught girl down. Not mentioning about how he couldn't get her home no matter how hard he tried. It was a miracle she had survived travelling through the rift, he had no idea how to reverse the process or even if she would be able to live through it again. She was as lost as he was, but he had managed to make a life in Cardiff and hoped his youngest employee would be able to do the same.

"He will, I killed her and he's kicked me out anyway. God all the blood, it was everywhere." She started trying to clean her hands, to get as much of the blood off as possible, but Jack held them to stop her hurting herself.

"Listen to me Lucy Smith, you're going to be fine. I'll get that blood off you in a bit don't worry. Ianto could never hate you. But you can stay here tonight, I'll set up the sofa for you but you need to calm down."

"I want my teddy." She said quietly into his coat after a couple of minutes of silence.

"I know you do Lucy" He said soothingly, "But we don't have him" he continued to stroke her hair until he felt her fall asleep in his arms. Jack gently wiped the blood off her hands so she wouldn't wake to them, although they would haunt her for a while.

He sighed at the mess that had happened today, but picked up Lucy and carefully put her on the sofa. Lucy immediately curled up into a ball as small as she could, as though even in her sleep she was trying to escape from everything. Jack sighed again and pulled off his coat and covered her with it, it wouldn't do for her to wake up cold on top of everything else. She suddenly looked young and Jack was reminded that Lucy Smith was only 23 years old, although she never acted like it.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

About an hour later, he had come back from Ianto's with clothes for Lucy to wear tomorrow and Ianto on suspension for a month. He still hadn't worked out what he was going to do to Lucy, as although she had helped the cyberwoman.

Lucy was still on the sofa but she had managed to kick Jack's coat off her as she succumbed to a nightmare. He could see the pain on her face and could hear the scream before it happened. Only it didn't, Lucy sat bolt upright and screamed as he predicted but it was silent, Jack was at her side in an instant, trying to calm her down.

She had woken up but when she saw him Lucy immediately pulled away from him and curled into a tight ball trying to calm herself down and stop shaking. She refused to look weak in front of him.

He sat at Gwen's desk pretending to get on with some work while he continued to watch her until she fell asleep again – half an hour later. They both knew that he was watching her but as long as neither of them mentioned it they could pretend he wasn't and Lucy wouldn't feel as bad. Once he was sure she had actually gone to sleep he put his coat over her again and actually did get on with some work. He continued to look after her throughout the night, replacing the coat every time she kicked it off, he wanted to make sure she didn't have another nightmare. She was part of his team and that made her well-being his responsibility, he couldn't help feeling as though it was something he had previously failed in. Something he had failed Ianto in as well. Jack resolved to never fail his team in the same way again.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

The next morning when Lucy woke up it only took a few seconds to remember what had happened the day before and the fact that she now had blood on her hands that could never be washed off. As she sat up and pulled Jack's coat off her, she realised she was holding it to her like she would hold Teddy.

Jack was working on her desk nearby and noticed she was awake. "Hi."

"Hi" Lucy replied dumbly not sure what else to say.

"Why?" The immortal man asked plainly.

"I had to try Jack." Lucy replied knowing that if he didn't agree with that she said she would be retconned and lose all memories of Torchwood and Doctor Who, as it had been part of her life since she was 14, that was not an idea she was happy with. "I knew how it could and would probably end. But I had to try and save her even if it was impossible and I knew it was. You all look through Ianto, like all he is is his ability to tidy up after you and to make amazing coffee and you don't even thank him for any of it. I had two choices, allow it to happen or to try and help. And if the only help I could offer was not letting him do it alone, then fine."

"Why did you kill her?" Jack's face showed no emotion.

"I killed the body of a girl she had already killed. I can't make it up to that girl family, because I let her die and I'll have to learn to live with that." She said as though it was unimportant, pushing the emotions involved to the back of her mind. "And Lisa died months ago, Ianto just didn't know it, or just didn't allow himself to acknowledge it. I couldn't let Ianto do it. You hate Torchwood 1 so much because it took Rose that you forget about everyone else who lost someone. Everyone whose family worked there and the people who were lucky enough to survive it. They lost everyone that they worked with and you just shrugged it off as unimportant."

Jack glared at her, currently refusing to admit she was right although he knew she was. He also knew that if he had cared about the survivors, he would have spoken to Ianto about it months ago when he first joined and could have been able to stop this whole incident then and there. But his face didn't show it as he continued to question her.

"But why _you_?"

"Because it couldn't be Ianto." She replied simply with a sigh, "I couldn't let him know the full horror of just a single cyberwoman with his girlfriend's face. All he needs to know is it killed Dr Tenzaki and that I killed the cyberwoman. He doesn't need to know about the pizza girl."

"Surely that's up to me as the boss to decide?"

Lucy was annoyed and showed it.

"To be fair Jack, like I said before if you cared more about him than his coffee you wouldn't have told him to go in there and kill her. You would have known that he would have done it and then hated himself for the rest of his life. And I don't know that because of the show." She continued before he could interrupt "Because on that it looks like he gets over it. I say it because I know Ianto. I know that he would just put on a mask and carry on with life because that's Ianto, that's what people like us do" He gestured to show she included Jack in that as well as herself. "So you know what, I don't give a damn if you retcon me, I wouldn't know any different anyway would I? But if you think that I was going to let Ianto destroy himself you've got another thing coming."

She and Jack were now standing and were in each other's personal space when the door opened and Tosh and Owen walked in. Tosh was carrying cups of coffee from Starbucks.

"Wow, that looks like quite an argument." Owen commented as he pulled his coat off and threw it over his chair.

"I thought I said you should come into work late." Jack said glaring at them.

"We did." Tosh replied, "even stopped to get coffee."

"Yeah, didn't think you were going to let tea-boy in." Owen said sarcastically.

Jack looked at Lucy's angry eyes and then stepped back out of her personal space before saying.

"His name is Ianto, Owen. Learn to use it, he's more than just the tea-boy." He sat down on Lucy's chair and looked back at her. "Go home, he's not angry at you. I don't want to see you and Ianto back here until I say so. You're on suspension, I'll come and see you both when I've calmed down and can sort this out rationally. You can come in tomorrow to get a couple of DVDs if you want, but you will be accompanied at all times"

Lucy nodded and picked up his coat from where she had left it on the sofa, she handed it to him with a sad smile.

"Thank you, Jack. I'm not sure I'll take you up on your offer straight away maybe next week if that's allowed."

"Just call and let me know. Go." She smiled again and went to leave but Tosh blocked her way.

"I brought coffee for you, and Ianto as well."

"Thanks Tosh." Lucy gave a sad smile to her as well in understanding, "I'm sure if you want to come visit..."

Tosh looked up at Jack who was staring at the pair of them,

"Maybe."

Lucy knew what Tosh meant and just nodded in understanding. At that moment Tosh couldn't commit to anything more than a maybe, and that was understandable, the events that Lucy had let happen the day before almost led to their deaths.

"Well I doubt we're going to be out much. Although Ianto might go stay with his sister for a bit. Anyway," she shrugged, "I've got to go."

Tosh let her past this time and Lucy left the hub holding two cups of Starbucks coffee.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: I love cyberwoman, I know some people think it's the worst episode but for all the character moments I love it. And I loved writing it too. Next week is an in-between chapter where Ianto and Lucy have a 'conversation' about why she didn't tell him.**

**See you next week**

**Rea**

**P.S Please don't forget to REVIEW, they make me happy!**

**P.P.S I don't own that song, it's called 'Both Sides Now' and belongs to Joni Mitchell. John Barrowman did a great cover of it and that's the one that Lucy is listening to**


	11. Chapter 11 - Consequences

**YOUR EYES DO NOT DECEIVE YOU! YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED YOUR GREATEST WISH  
><strong>(Basically I'm in a good mood and decided to give you an extra chapter for today. It's also for pacing reasons that you'll discover in a few weeks)

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"Why?" Ianto walked into the front room where Lucy was busy pacing, this was a conversation they both knew was going to happen and they had both been putting off for the past couple of weeks. But they could do it no longer and they both knew it. Ianto needed to know why Lucy had done what she did, why she had lied to him about Lisa and why she had walked into the hub and shot her instead of him.

"You wouldn't understand" Lucy said as she stopped pacing to face him, her face was begging him to drop it but also showed resignation and relief that they were final going to discuss the elephant in the room.  
>"What do you mean?" Ianto pressed; this was more than Lucy not telling anyone about her past or what was going to happen in the future. That was understandable. This was her refusing to tell him about the choices she had made for him, that was not acceptable. Lucy sighed.<p>

"Just... look, I mean... how could you understand?" The archivist was normally fairly level headed but he could feel his temper start to rise.

"If you just explained, I'm sure I'd get it."

"Don't bother" Lucy said nearly begging. Earlier she had wanted them to have this conversation, thinking that she knew what she was going to say, but now she wished that Ianto had never brought it up, she had no idea what to say. How do you tell someone that their girlfriend could never have been fixed and had been dead for months? That the thing they had loved was a creature using the memories and the face of Lisa and that that she had killed an innocent simply because she was there? Or that she truly didn't believe that he would ever recover from what Jack had asked him to do?

"But I want to know why." Ianto continued, not knowing the thoughts that were running round her head

"It doesn't matter." Lucy said after a long pause, still not knowing what to say so she sat down on the sofa and started playing with the end of her plait refusing to look at Ianto.

Ianto took a deep breath and sat down next to her, not looking at her either.

"It mattered enough for you to do it." He said quietly

"Forget it." Lucy whispered, looking up at him briefly, "please Ianto just forget it. I wish I could."

"I'm going to find out at some point" He replied and Lucy's temper flared and she tugged on her plait even harder.

"FINE. You want me to tell you why?" She turned to face him her eyes ablaze with anger.

"Yes please" His voice was calm but she could see the determination in his eyes. Lucy was about to say everything, but the thought of Ianto's face when Jack had told him to go kill Lisa stopped her and she sagged and looked away again, hugging one of the cushions.

"I... I can't Ianto. I wish it had never happened but I don't regret what I did."

"Why not?" Ianto realised that although he might not ever find out everything he was getting closer to finding out _something_, which would have to do for now.

"You know me Ianto. You know what I'm like, try to imagine yourself in my position what would you do?"

"I don't know" He replied truthfully, "I don't fully know the situation you're in. But I have no idea what I would do if the rift took me to a fictional world that I knew. I just..." he shrugged "I just don't know."

"Me neither, and that's my life" She said sarcastically loosening her hold on the cushion. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you Ianto, but I couldn't. But what I'm not going to apologise for is going in instead of you."  
>"I didn't imagine you would" He pulled the cushion out of her hold forcing her to look at him, "I just wish you'd told me the truth about Lisa." She tried to look away but Ianto wouldn't let her.<p>

"I'm sorry."

"I can't imagine to understand what you are going through but it try and tell me something. For example..." He pretended to think seriously before smiling "Does Owen ever stop drinking and having one night stands?" Lucy smiled.

"Nope". They both sat on the sofa thinking before Lucy spoke again, "Does this mean I'm not kicked out?"

"Cook a decent dinner tonight and I'll let you stay." Ianto replied sarcastically. "I'm going to go stay with Rhiannon for a week. When I get back we'll move on and won't talk about it."

"You don't want to know more?" Lucy asked confused.  
>"Course I do, but I know you Miss Smith. You won't tell me anymore no matter how much I ask."<p>

"Nah," She got up off the sofa "Chicken and white sauce for dinner?"

"Sounds nice. I'll call Rhi and let her know that I'm going to go stay."

Lucy looked back at him while standing in the doorway, "Does this mean I'm forgiven?" Ianto's face turned dark.

"It means I understand and I'm willing to try and move on and get over it. Don't push it."

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: This chapter was important for me to write, the relationship between Lucy and the team is something that I try to focus on and to keep them in character, although of course things do inevitably change with the different situations I put them in. **

**As I was asked in a review about why Lucy was suspended too I'll let you know here.**

**In all the other episodes so far, and in most of the future ones too, Lucy has simply allowed things to happen the way that 'time dictates they should', small things change but the events are still the same. If she'd done the same with Ianto and Lisa, simply allowed it to happen Jack would have been annoyed but understood it. However Lucy HELPED, she made a concious decision to try and help Ianto fix Lisa (see chapter 1) and that meant that instead of being a bystander she was part of the problem. Plus it was also to give the rest of the team time to calm down over it, if Lucy had stayed the rest of the team would have gone mental because she helped Ianto - never mind that she was the one to kill Lisa/Annie**

**Hope that caused up any confusion.**

**Have a great day and I'll see you again for Small Worlds on Friday**

**Rea**


	12. Chapter 12 - Small Worlds

**Sorry it's a day late**

**(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) 16th October (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)**

Lucy and Ianto both woke up early on the day their suspension was lifted and they were cleared to go back to work. It was a joint decision that didn't take much thinking about the night before to go in before the rest of the team did. This meant that they would not be stared at as they walked into the hub and would hopefully make it less awkward. It was also a case of returning to normal as soon as possible, and normal included the team coming in to find Ianto either on the tourist office desk or making coffee whilst Lucy was in the range shooting. They were never earlier than Jack but that was because he slept in the hub, neither of them had any idea what time Jack was ready for work, when he found the time to sleep, or even if he needed it.

"You ready?" Ianto asked as he let them into the tourist office and locked the door again behind him - it was 5am after all and Tosh would not be in for at least another three hours, she would let herself in but leave the door unlocked so that once she had got her coffee from Ianto he could go back upstairs and get some paperwork done before the early morning tourists appeared wanting to know what they should spend the rest of the day doing. It had been an agreement with the Welsh Assembly when the cover for Torchwood 3 had been decided on, not that the Assembly had much choice, the office had to be open between 8-8 so as not to ruin the Welsh tourist board and its reputation. They kept to those rules as much as possible, using them more as guidelines than actual rules; there were other tourist offices in Cardiff after all.

The two walked through the office, Ianto picking up the pile of post and files that had been left on the side as they continued down the corridor towards the hub.

"No but yes." She replied eventually, "You?"

"Same. It'll be good to get back to work though, try and catch up on things before the team get in as well."

"I'm just looking forward to playing with my guns again, I've fallen out of practice this past month."

"You'll be fine." Ianto said with a smirk

"I need to be more than fine." The cog door opened and they slipped into the dark hub. "Looks like you've got your job cut out tidying this place up." Lucy commented with a wry smile

The floor and the desks of the hub were a mess, food cartons where everywhere as well as old files and rubbish, Ianto sighed.  
>"1 month. I've been gone a month."<p>

"Well you have fun, with all the tidying and stuff... I'm going to go shoot." Lucy said working her way through the hub in the darkness as she got closer to her small office and shooting range.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Lucy was glad that when she finally emerged from the shooting range a couple of hours later the rest of the team had already turned up and weren't treating her any differently, although Tosh did welcome her back. There was a moment where it was awkward when she first appeared but Owen only rolled his eyes and asked if she liked the high score on the shooting competition that they had started. Lucy had instantly told him that she had decimated his score and that maybe he ought to get some more practice in if he didn't like being beaten by a girl. The sense of normality from Owen mocking Lucy and Lucy responding with as good as she got caused the tension to disappear and Lucy knew that although they would never forget that she had helped to hide a cyberwoman in Torchwood they had forgiven her.

"Got anything interesting?" Lucy asked as she leant against Tosh's desk.

"You mean apart from your monthly medical with Owen?" Jack asked as he walked out of his office.

"Come on Jack." Lucy moaned, "It's not like I've been working this past month so nothing could have changed between now and the last time you forced me to go through torture."

"Still not changing my mind." He said with his eyebrow raised "Just like you didn't last time, or the time before that, or the one before that come to think of it. Is there any reason why we have to have this argument every month?"

"Because one day you'll change your mind and agree that you don't need the excuse of a monthly medical to give Owen a chance to release some of his sadistic tendencies."

"I am not sadistic!" Owen called across

"Yes you are." Lucy replied and Tosh nodded.

"You've not got the best bedside manner." She said diplomatically

"I've hardly got the best patients. Besides I'm better off when dealing with dead bodies - I don't need to worry about being polite that way."

"It doesn't matter if Owen is sadistic or not." Jack interrupted "What is important is the fact that Lucy has to have a monthly medical, and it seem like I have to have a monthly argument with her about it."

"Fine." Lucy rolled her eyes, "The fact that I've been near nothing alien for the last month obviously makes no difference seeing as these medicals are to check impacts of alien technology. Besides we all know Owen just wants more of my blood to look at."

"What can I say?" Owen joked, "You're unique and I'm the only doctor who gets to study the differences, for all we know I might find something interesting by getting a fresh sample every month."

"Hang on" Gwen said, Lucy had forgotten she was there, "what's so special about Lucy's blood?"

"Rare blood type" Owen said automatically, "mixed with a genetic condition. Doesn't make any impact on her life but makes for an interesting study, not that I can publish anything I find. Isn't that right Lucy?"

"Yeah." She added with an exhale of breath, "My whole family has it."

"So if I can please deal with my grumpy patient and get this over with..." Lucy sighed and pushed herself off the desk, she looked seriously at Tosh.

"When you hear me screaming for help and none of you bother to turn up, don't be surprised if the next thing you hear after that is a gunshot and then the thud of Owen's body hitting the floor."

"As long as you tidy up and take him to the morgue yourself I don't think anyone would complain." Tosh said dryly not taking her eyes off the computer screen.

"Right now we've got the argument done and out of the way, Gwen you and me are going out. Ianto see what else you can find about what you mentioned earlier and Tosh, that letter we found last week? Can you start working on a translation for me?"

"Sure."

They all got to their assigned jobs and Lucy walked over to Owen, who quickly put the curtain up and started the physical.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

An hour or so after Owen finished torturing her in the name of medicine, Jack called the hub. "Gwen and I are on our way back. I need you to find everything you can about fairies."

"Fairies?" Tosh had said surprised although she was already entering the term into her search engine.

"Yes the Cottingley fairies anything you can find that could be useful and real."

"I'll have to search deep to find the beginnings of the lore." She mused "Fairies are everywhere and each version is slightly different."

"We'll be back in 10 minutes, meeting in 30." Jack said before hanging up. Tosh looked both bemused and annoyed before shrugging,

"Looks like I've got work to do. Ianto, have we got anything in the archives?"

"Maybe, doubt it." He replied. "I'll have a look just in case."

30 minutes later they were all in the meeting room, Ianto walked in with a tray full of coffees as Tosh had the famous picture of the Cottingley fairies on the screen.

"It's fake." Gwen said stubbornly

"I blame it on magic mushrooms." Ianto said dryly as he handed out the coffee.  
>"What you do in private is none of our business." Jack said<p>

"Conan Doyle believed it was true." Tosh pointed out.

"He was gaga at the time." Gwen replied quickly

"_And_ Houdini?"

"Self-publicist."

"How do you know so much about it?" Jack asked

"Because I wrote an essay on the Cottingley glass plate photographs when I was at school."

"And you remember all the information you had to know for _one_ essay?" Lucy asked sarcastically, "Bloody hell I can barely remember the over arching themes of the information my teachers told me. Let alone enough to hold my own in argument about something I did an essay on years ago."

"Some things just stick in your brain." Gwen replied "And when the girls were old ladies they admitted they were fakes."

"So where was this sighting then?" Tosh asked moving on to one of the photos that Jack had brought back with him

"In a place called Roundstone Wood." Jack replied

"I know it." Owen said from where he was sitting against one of the cabinets on the side "Has an odd history."

"Am I the only person who isn't a fountain of endless useless knowledge?" Lucy asked.

"Date of the first Doctor Who episode" Jack shot at her and Lucy responded automatically

"23rd November 1963 - An Unearthly Child, and the modern series started on 26th March 2005 - Rose."

"There you go." Jack nodded, "you filled your brain with other stuff. Hang on, _Rose_ Rose?"

"Err, yeah." She shrugged, ignoring Gwen's confused face and the rest of the team looking annoyed; although they may know more about what they were talking about than Gwen did they still had no way of putting it into context. "It's extra useless now though isn't it. Not like their useless knowledge that always turns out to be helpful in cases like this."

"Not always. Anyway, Owen?"

"Err yeah... It's always stayed wild. In the ancient times it was considered bad luck to walk in there, even to collect timber. Even the Romans stayed clear of it."

"I've had no report of any sighting" Tosh said

"You won't" Jack replied, "These things come under the radar, but they play tricks with the weather, so set up a program from unnatural weather patterns."  
>"Right." Tosh started making notes on her handled machine<p>

"Are you saying our machines can't pick them up?" Gwen asked suddenly worried, a few minutes ago this had all been a joke and now it wasn't. They had fought aliens before so why not fairies? The knowledge that they couldn't even find them was worrying.

"Nothing can." Jack replied straight faced and they could see that he wasn't really with them, he was thinking about the past. About half a minute later the look disappeared off his face. "Gwen, Owen, we're going to the woods to see what we can find. Tosh set up that program and then go back to the search, I don't know what I expect you'll find so I can't help but look for things attached to the 'chosen ones'. Ianto have a look in the archives, if they've got a circle nearby Torchwood might have met them before. Lucy you help Ianto, unfortunately your speciality isn't really needed today."

"Fine by me." Lucy shrugged "oh and Jack..." She didn't want to make it obvious that she knew this episode as Gwen was still in the vicinity but she had promised. "It sounds to me like this could be called _'Small_ _Worlds' _and that this is the _fifth._"

Jack looked confused for a couple of seconds before he understood what Lucy was trying to tell him. "Great well let me know what you can. Let's go; Owen, Gwen."

They all got to work, Owen and Gwen followed Jack and Tosh and Ianto turned on Lucy almost straight away.

"Going to tell us what the cryptic message to Jack was about?" Tosh asked

"I've got to tell him if it's an episode" Lucy replied as she drained her mug. "Only I want to keep Gwen in the dark for as long as possible. He's given me an expiry date on the secret, I've got until election day."

"So you know what's going on?"

"Vaguely." Lucy shrugged, "I know how it ends and I can remember the name of the girl - could probably pick her out in a line up, if I had to. But anything more than that not outside of major plot points and even those fairly few. It's not my favourite episode."

"And we're on episode 5." Ianto said, Lucy knew it wasn't a question but she replied anyway.

"Yeah, out of 13 in the first series."

"What were the others?"

"Gwen joining and Suzie, Gwen's first day, the ghost machine and er..." She looked awkwardly at Ianto.

"Lisa." He filled in the gap and Lucy nodded.

"We're getting through them pretty quickly." Tosh mused.

"I dunno I suppose so, I know the last one ends just before election day - I think anyway it was only ever implied. And we have one over Christmas and there's a run on from that..."

"So I shouldn't invite the family over for Christmas then?" Ianto said dryly

"It's Torchwood, did you ever expect it to be dull?" Lucy asked with a teasing tone to her voice before turning serious again, "It's not like we're in London - they have a mess to deal with every Christmas. It's almost tradition."

"There was the Sycorax last year that but apart from that it's been quiet." Tosh said defensively.

"7pm Christmas Day, Doctor Who." Lucy replied, "This year is the Titanic then..." She thought for a second, "No hang on... its series 3 so I want the Christmas before that which is pre-Martha... post-Rose, which means Donna. So it's the Spider and Donna this year and _then_ the Titanic and then cybermen in Victorian London, then the regeneration and then... 'A Christmas Carol' and that's in the future on a different planet so I think we'll be fine, and we don't have to deal with the cybers in Victorian London either." Ianto and Tosh stared at her as Lucy pulled herself out of 'fanmode' as she had dubbed it and blushed slightly, she looked awkwardly at them."Er... can we just forget I said all of that and get on with the jobs Jack gave us?"

Tosh sighed.

"I suppose I should get this program up and running, but really Lucy? A spider and the Titanic? That's what we've got to look forward to?"

"Well on the upside we don't need to worry about it cause the Doctor sorts it. We can pretend we are normal and watch it on the TV, although like I said this year isn't exactly quiet for us. But it's not a major monster..." She tried to find the right words, "just a situation? And to be fair I think that happens before Christmas. I think." She winced but Tosh and Ianto looked at each other and shrugged.

"Come on." Ianto said as he walked towards the archives. "Let's get some work done before you start telling us about every plot coming up that we don't need to deal with."

"Sounds like a plan. Oh and Tosh?"

"Hmm?" Tosh had already started working on the programming, so didn't look up from the screen

"I know Gwen keeps saying those photo's are fake but it might be interesting to run the faces of the fairies through a face recognition software at some point."

"_Interesting_ kind of interesting?"

"I can't give you the answers but I might be able to speed up the result." Lucy replied, Ianto sighed and grabbed her arm as he continued to walk away, pulling Lucy behind him. "Ow, yes I'm coming, I'm coming."

Tosh laughed and got back to her work, Lucy's words ringing in her ears. She made a small note to herself to run the recognition software as soon as possible. It would take a while because she would need to up the quality as much as possible in order to get the best result, but as it was only a small area of the photo each face would only take an hour or so to clean up.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

They found nothing useful that night, once Jack, Gwen and Owen came back and helped out and when Jack sent them home they were all slightly disheartened.

"Wait a sec" Jack called from his office as they were all preparing to leave, "I've just had a weird call from the police. They've had a cell death they can't explain, want us to go check it out."

"Well I've got late night tomorrow night." Owen said quickly, "So I'm going out to the pub, it'll still be dead tomorrow morning if you need a more in depth look."

"Fine, Gwen, Tosh?" Jack looked at the two women and they shrugged,

"Sure." Tosh agreed, "it's not the first time I've had to cover for Owen."

"I'll come." Lucy said as she pulled her leather jacket on, "got nothing else to do."

"You and Ianto are going home." Jack said firmly "You got in at 5am and have been working non-stop. You both need to sleep."

"I'll be fine." Lucy replied with a shrug, "I got plenty of sleep over this past month."

"I'm trying to be a good boss here, now go home to bed."  
>"Are you sure that's not harassment sir?" Ianto asked and Jack smirked<p>

"You wish. Now do we need to drive you on our way to the cells or are you going to go by yourself?"

"We're going." Ianto said directing Lucy towards the car park. Lucy knew that trying to object at this point would be useless no matter how much she wanted to, it was annoying her how little she knew about this episode as well. Although Jack had allowed her to take DVDs out while she was on suspension she had decided to watch Doctor Who instead of Torchwood, thinking it would be better to not remind herself of everything that was going to happen in her life in the coming months that she wasn't allowed to change. She was starting to regret that choice now.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

The next morning Lucy and Ianto walked into work at their normal early time, although not as early as the day before. The tone in the Hub was muted as though something terrible had happened, Jack was sitting in his office getting on with work while Tosh did the same at her desk, looking over at Jack every now and again as though she was checking up on him. Ianto went straight over to the coffee maker while Lucy walked over to Tosh.

"What happened?" She asked quietly.

"A friend of his 'Dads' died last night." Tosh replied equally quietly

"Ahh." Lucy understood immediately and then cursed as she realised that she remembered Estelle and what had happened, they had shown it in the damn episode.

"Exactly" Tosh said "and we can't track these things apart from through the weather patterns. I've got the program up and running no problem and the second we pick anything up we'll be ready to go. But apart from research there is nothing we can do, and it's not even like there is much research to do. I'm running the faces through the scanner like you suggested but I'm having to do them one at a time and I need to tidy them up as well to get the best result possible if we get any result."

"So we have to act as though we don't have a case on because we can't do anything else then?"  
>"Precisely. All we know about these things is they can control the elements and they protect their chosen child. The call out last night from the cells - he choked on flower petals. Jack said it's a common thing for them to do but I don't understand it. If they were so powerful why?"<p>

"They're children." Lucy said with a shrug, remembering everything that had been said to her as she was growing up "Kids can be and often are mean, because they can be. If they want to hurt you and they're more powerful they will. Consequences aren't a thing in their mind and these are powerful children - whose going to punish them? How are they going to punish them? Send them into the naughty corner for five minutes?"

"I think Jack wants to shoot them." Tosh replied also remembering the bullies at her school, the incident seemed a little better now she understood the motivation behind it although the thought of school bullies with this level of power was not comforting.

"What difference is that going to make to them though?"

"Might kill them."

"It probably would, but there's more than one of them and they can take away the air we breathe. Killing one would mean in all our deaths - probably the deaths of everyone in the area in their anger, if not more."

"What do we do then?"

"I don't know" Lucy sighed, she didn't like having to lie to her friends and she was certain that she knew she was lying as well, as she had admitted to the Japanese woman that she knew how this story went and Toshiko wasn't one for forgetting the details. She wasn't surprised when Tosh raised an eyebrow at her and turned to get back on with her work, silently declaring the conversation over.

Ianto walked over with a tray and three mugs of coffee on top of it, Lucy took Jack's as well as her own.  
>"I'm going in to talk to him anyway." She explained, Ianto nodded in understanding before putting the tray back and starting to get on with his job - the hub needed to be tidied up a bit, and Myfwany needed to be fed before he went down to the archives.<p>

Lucy walked over to Jack's office and knocked on the door frame as she walked in.

"I've brought your coffee and wondered if you wanted to talk." Jack took the mug but didn't say anything, "Fair enough, I didn't actually think you would but thought I should probably offer, seeing as I'm one of the few people who knows the truth after all. I'm presuming you met her post-Doctor, so your second time in WWII, cause you were hardly the settle down type beforehand and besides you were only in that time to pull a con." Jack looked up at her from his mug and Lucy blushed. "Fuck, sorry Jack. I didn't think about what I was saying. Anyway the real reason I came in here was to say that you almost certainly don't want to talk to anyone but just to remind you that shooting is a good way to get rid of some extra stress. Plus according to the Hub rules you need to train for at least an hour a week before you can leave the hub with a weapon and you haven't done that for over a month."

Lucy could see she'd broken Jack's barrier as he smirked at her.

"Are you really going to try and enforce that rule with me? In full knowledge that isn't actually a Torchwood rule?"

"It got you to say something didn't it? And I'm not that stupid, I've got no chance at being better than you - ever. Plus it's totally a real Torchwood rule. We're the only one left - apart from Archie - and it's our rule. Therefore it is a Torchwood rule. Just like you're the head of the whole Torchwood institute by default. You agreed with the hub rules making them official Torchwood rules twice over."

Jack just looked at her.

"I'm not sure it works that way."

"My logic is flawless." Lucy replied with a smile, "anyway, I'm planning on catching up with my paperwork up here for the afternoon, I've got a month's worth of Torchwood to catch up on. So the range is free if you want to use it."

"Thanks." He said, Lucy could see that he meant it, just as his phone rang. "Gwen? ... I'll be there as soon as possible."

"Need back up?" Lucy asked, Jack relayed the question and was grateful when the reply was negative; it meant that whatever the problem was it wasn't an emergency.

"Jack?" Lucy said as he hung up and grabbed his great coat. "I know that they want their chosen one and she's just a child, but how can we stop it? What if she wants to go and it stops people dying?"

"I don't know." Jack replied seriously, "But we can't let them keep killing."  
>"They're trying to defend their friend."<p>

Jack didn't say anything but Lucy could see that he was thinking about it, he pulled his coat on and the pair left his office. She went to the sofa and grabbed the paperwork and he left to go and help Gwen.

When Jack came back to the hub, Gwen was in tow; Owen had turned up about an hour earlier. "What happened?" Tosh asked, she could see that Gwen was angry.

"They ransacked my flat, smashed everything up, petals and twigs and dirt everywhere. Took us hours to tidy it up."

"Are you ok?"

"Fine, just a bit shaken up. Rhys is livid and wants to report it to the police, but they can't do anything. And I had to let him call it in because if I don't it'll look suspicious - I don't like lying to him."

"The good news is you are both still alive." Lucy pointed out, "It's not like they aren't powerful enough to kill you, so the fact that they didn't means they only wanted to scare you."

"And that makes me feel loads better, thanks!" Gwen retorted sarcastically.

"Tosh" Jack said stopping the argument between Gwen and Lucy before it began, "I want a report on all unexplained deaths in the area, see if any are ours and linked with this."

"What's the weather forecast today?" Tosh asked

"Sunny spells" Ianto replied straight away.

"It's happening again." Tosh zoomed in on the map, pin pointing the area of freak weather. Lucy looked at her watch.

"10:30, it's break time for schools." They all looked at her and she shrugged, "The chosen one is a child yeah? Therefore these things are going to happen on a child's timetable and not ours. The man yesterday was arrested about an hour after the schools finished for the day, so if the child is in danger now I would guess they are being bullied by other pupils."

"How do you know what time schools have their morning break?" Jack asked, Lucy stared at him and looked slightly uncomfortable.

"I err... just one of those things that always stuck in my head, like you and your faries. Break at 10:30, lunch 12:15, finish at 3. I mean all schools are slightly different but those are the rough timings." They could all tell she wasn't telling the complete truth but it didn't matter because they had a job to do and she was probably right in her guess for the cause of the situation.

"Let's go."

They piled out of the SUV in the school car park, parents picking up students. Jack flashed his badge at the front desk.

"Hi, we're here to ask a few questions." The receptionist looked confused but nodded.

"Can we talk to the teacher who was on duty?" Lucy asked

"Kate Ried, she teaches year 3. I think she's in shock though."

"That's understandable, we've just got a couple of questions about what happened." Jack said turning on the charm offensive

"She's in the staff room, I'll go get her for you."  
>"Thank you for your help."<p>

A minute or so later a young woman walked up the corridor to meet them, she was pale and wrapped in a blanket.

"You wanted to speak to me?"

"We were just wondering if you could tell us exactly what happened?"  
>"You police?"<p>

"Not quite." Owen said, "we deal with things like this that are a bit... unusual."

"In Cardiff?"

"Happens more often than you would think, so?"

"I've got some stuff to do in my classroom, can I tell you on the way?"

"No problem."

They started to walked down the corridor, Lucy only half listening as she looked at all the displays on the wall. This job and walking through a primary school again was making her feel homesick and she couldn't help but wish she was still suspended; why did it have to start happening the day she came back, why not a couple of days earlier and then she wouldn't have to deal with it?

"I've never seen anything like it. It was so sudden. Then it... then it just ended."

"Was anyone hurt?" Owen asked, always the doctor.

"No two children were almost scared to death, but they're ok. And there was little Jasmine in amongst it all. She hadn't been touched, the sun was shining down on her." Owen and Tosh slipped away with the equipment to take some readings as Gwen joined them again. This brought Lucy out of her thoughts.

"What's Jasmine's relationship with the other two girls?"

"Jasmine's a bit of a loner, doesn't really have any friends. She struggles with the others, away with the fairies a bit"

"These other two girls though" Lucy pushed, "are they friendly towards her or not?"

"They're a couple of years above her, but no I don't think they like her."

"Do they bully her?"

"Maybe... I don't know. Why all these questions?"  
>"We can't tell you that I'm afraid." Jack said "Whose Jasmine?"<br>"Jasmine Pearce, she's a pupil of mine?"

"You teach year three?" Lucy asked and the teacher nodded "So Jasmine's 7 or 8?"

"She's 8."

"Have you sent her home already?"

"Yeah, her parents live fairly close. Her mum was one of the first to get here."  
>"Do you know what her home life is like?"<p>

"I think she's alone there as well - she's an only child, her father left when she was a baby and her mother found a new bloke a while back, although I don't think they got married. I don't think she gets along with her stepfather but she doesn't say anything."

"Ok thanks for your help." Jack said as they reached the classroom door

"The chosen one?" Gwen asked

"Yeah." Jack replied, "I'll get Ianto to find out where she lives and we'll go straight there."

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Lucy watched as the fairies wrecked the party and started attacking the man they assumed was Jasmine's stepfather, everyone panicking and little Jasmine standing calmly in the middle, watching it all with a smile on her face. Gwen looked horrified and Jack looked like he didn't know what to do as he tried to beg the fairies into stopping. Lucy decided to do what she has always done with her little sister when she felt out of her depth, talk to the child directly.

She walked forward and bent down to Jasmine's height.

"Hi Jasmine" She said with a smile, "I'm Lucy, I need you to promise me something."

"I want to go" Jasmine said and Lucy nodded, knowing there was nothing she could do.

"I know you do. But I still need to hear that promise, and then you can go. Ok?"

"Jack!" Gwen shouted behind her trying to get him to save the day but she ignored it.

"I need you to promise me that you're unhappy here. Even if your friends hadn't chosen you, that you wouldn't want to stay. Can you do that?"

Jasmine's mother was close by and she was looking over, trying to decide between her dead partner and her daughter, she was being held back by Owen. Jasmine looked at her, at the fairies, at Roy's dead body and then back at Lucy who was waiting patiently for an answer.

"I don't like it here, I want to be in the forest with my friends."

"Ok" Jack said crouching down to join them, "But I want your friends to promise me something too. I need them to promise that they are going to keep you safe."

Two of the fairies landed behind the little girl, standing like her bodyguards.

"She is one of us, we could not hurt her. She lives forever."

The two members of Torchwood nodded, happy with that agreement and stepped back. "Take her" Jack said simply.

"Wait" Lucy said, suddenly needing to know if they could answer her question, and voicing her thoughts before she'd even realised that she was thinking them. "Before you go... if you are constant across all of time and space does that count for universes as well?"

"It does, and she is not one of us but she is a happy child and because of who you are and what you have done for us today we will look over her for you, until she no longer needs us." The fairies replied, answering the question she was really asking.

"Thank you, it is more than I could ever have asked for. I just wanted to know she was happy and you have given me a great gift that I can never repay." Lucy smiled at Jasmine, "Go join your friends, Jasmine. They are waiting for you. Be happy."

Jasmine grinned up at them and her mother finally came out of her trance screaming for her little girl as she skipped away, out of the garden with her fairy friends as she became one of them herself.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: Hope you enjoyed Small Worlds. There's a few more hints in here towards Lucy's life before Torchwood. Sorry again it's a day late and I'll see you next week for Countrycide.**

**I've also worked out what date things are happening and am going to go back and edit that in and make a point to put in on future chapters.**

**Have a good week, keep smiling and please review**

**Rea**


	13. Chapter 13 - Countrycide

After Lucy and Ianto had came back from their suspension apart from the first couple of days and the incident with the fairies, Jack spotted that Lucy was quieter than before and doing her best to stay unnoticed and out of sight.

Lucy had noticed this in herself as well but wasn't sure how to pull herself out of this funk. Since appearing in this world she had thrown herself into everything that was happening - she wasn't sure how long this was going to last and had decided to live every fans dream the way she _should_. However since killing Lisa and knowing that she was the reason that the family of the pizza delivery girl - Annie - thought she had committed suicide, Lucy had found herself falling back into her old habits. Not letting others notice her was one of the first things she'd learnt. The second was to make everyone think she was fine, if they did notice her. Staying out of sight was fairly difficult in a team of 6, especially since they discovered Ianto's secret and that Jack was forcing him to join the team more instead of just tiding up after them. But for Lucy, who couldn't remember ever not having a secret which meant that she wanted to stay out of sight, it wasn't as difficult as she originally thought and feared that it would be. She got her work done on time and although she joined them on the rugby outing all she needed to do was to join in the conversation when needed, but mainly to just listen and nod. People noticed if you stayed out of sight, but if you made all the right noises at the right time they never noticed anything was wrong.

This worked well although she was lonely at work she still talking and enjoyed spending her spare time with Ianto outside of Torchwood. He was sure that Ianto knew that she was doing but he didn't bring it up.

Staying in the shadows worked until Jack walked down from his office with a camping rucksack on his back. It seemed out of place and in direct contrast to his normal WWII wear and yet somehow he managed to pull it off.

"Team building trip" He said with a smirk

"Where are we going?" Gwen asked as they all stopped what they were doing to look at their boss.

"Brecon beacons" The captain replied, Lucy's face lost all of its colour as she remembered the episode that was about to happen. "We're going camping. Every 10 years people disappear in this area, we're going to find out why."  
>"I'm not going camping." Owen argued as he pulled his bloody gloves off and threw them in the bin,.<p>

"It's a _team_ building trip and you're part of the team." Jack replied his voice leaving no room for arguments. "UNIT is lending me a few people to keep an eye on the rift while we're out. You've got 2 hours to get everything ready, and they'll be here by then. Once they are here - we're off."  
>Everyone grumbled but moved to go home and pack a bag, Lucy didn't move from her seat. She stared at Jack, her mask a face of horror. She couldn't go. She couldn't face this.<p>

They only noticed her lack of movement once Gwen had left the hub, Owen was following her and had nearly gone as well but he happened to glance back, the second he spotted Lucy he stopped. This caused Tosh to almost walk into him and Jack to look up, Owen gestured at Lucy and Jack walked over to her.

"Lucy?" He asked and her voice broke as she tried to reply and work out what to say.

"I... I can't... please"

"Why are you so scared Lucy?" Jack asked speaking to her like someone would speak to a spooked animal.

Lucy was trying to not think about what was hiding in the Beacons. The images on the TV screen of the episode that she hated to watch. Plus the knowledge the that was going to happen was going to be worse as it wouldn't be toned down for the TV screen as well as the smell that was going to go with it.  
>"Please Jack..."<br>"Why are you so scared?" Jack repeated

"I can't tell you." Lucy replied, her eyes coming back to focus on Jack and the hub instead of her memories. "You know I can't tell you what's going to happen. But I can't go, please don't make me go." She stared to panic and Ianto moved away from the door to kneel beside her in an effort to calm her down.

"31 episodes and I can watch 30. I can't watch this one please don't make me live it. I can't live it. I'll take you to Madame Tuassuads... Please just don't make me... I can't go through their harvest."

"You're petrified of waxworks." Ianto said, understanding exactly how scared she really was. "Jack, Lucy wouldn't go there for an offer to travel in the TARDIS." He explained to the Captain.

"Well if it's that scary why should we go at all?" Owen asked from the door.

"Well we need to calm Lucy down before we do anything." Ianto snapped in response, "She's on the verge of hyperventilating."

"Keep her focussed on something," Owen replied "There's nothing else that I can do unless you want me to knock her out."  
>"Let's keep that as plan B" Jack said sarcastically "Lucy, keep looking at Ianto and breathe"<br>"Don't make me go there Yan... I can't... please... I can't do it"  
>"I'm not going to make you do anything" Ianto replied, "you need to calm down Lucy, breathe with me. In and out... that's it... in and out."<p>

It took a couple of minutes but Lucy eventually calmed down, she was curled up in a chair in Jack's office holding a hot coffee. Jack stood in front of her and Ianto sat behind her; Jack had told Tosh and Owen to go back home and pack. Ianto was only allowed to stay in case she panicked again, along with a promise that he would stay silent.

"You want to tell us what this is about?" Jack said leaning on the desk watching her seriously, "I wasn't expecting that reaction when I mentioned a team camping trip."

Lucy didn't say anything but stared at her mug instead as though it would all disappear

"Lucy!" Jack said forcing her to answer the question

"What do you want me to say?" She spoke quietly

"The truth is normally the best, but I'm not sure it fits this current situation." Jack replied flippantly

"The truth is that what's hidden in the Beacons petrifies me, but you need to go."

"What scares you so much that you can't face?" Jack mused knowing that she couldn't reply. he thought for a bit then spoke again, "Ok so you'll be a danger risk on this mission then?"

Lucy nodded, not trusting her voice to stay steady.

"But we still need to go, not just for team building but because there is a creature hiding there that needs to be stopped."

"Creatures, plural" Lucy amended, not correcting Jack on his assumption that these were aliens of some sort, because although they may have been born human, Lucy couldn't think of them as such. Or rather the problem was that she _could_ think of them as human and she knew that what they were doing was horrible but that the Master was right, 'human beings, the greatest monsters of them all'.

"There's more than one of them?"

"Yeah" Lucy breathed, "and you won't see them coming."

"Don't give too much away." Jack said with a small smile, "it takes all the fun out of it." Lucy couldn't help but give a small smile back.

"Time travel is such a pain." she agreed.

"Exactly. Now I'll leave you here with the UNIT guys on the proviso that you don't go out into the field without them if you need to. You're not in charge in the field, and they are setting up their own base as I'm not having them in the hub. I may not like UNIT but there are times that they know what they are doing. You're to spend the time you're not in here at their base. They'll take what you say into account but don't have to act on it."

"Agreed." Lucy said quickly in case Jack changed his mind. "Thank you Jack. I will stand with you throughout the rest of the other 30 episodes, but I can't face this one."  
>"No problem." Jack said "Just maybe next time tell me that instead of having a full blown panic attack, or at least give us some warning."<br>"I'll try." Lucy said with a shrug, now that she knew that she wasn't going to be forced to go to the countryside she felt uncomfortable with all the attention that was on her again.

"And Lucy..." The captain pulled her out of her thoughts, seeing that she was talking herself into a potentially dark place.

"Yeah?"

"We're all friends here, no need to hide as much as you do." She looked shocked that he had noticed, "The others might not have worked it out yet, but I am supposedly in charge of you lot. I tend to notice when one of my team is hiding from the rest of us. It's a team of 6, not that difficult to spot. This was predominantly a team building trip that happened to involve a case and not the other way round, it's not the best team building if the person who needs to get more involved in the team isn't going."  
>Ianto gave a small cough in the corner and Jack rolled his eyes but amended his statement, "Ok now that I've recognised that I have a team of 6 and not 5, I'm making a point of keeping an eye on all of you. Better?"<p>

"Much." Ianto said as he stood up, "I'll go pack my staff and text Tosh and Owen to let them know they only have an hour and a half before UNIT get here and we leave, and that Lucy won't be coming with us. All we need to do is come up with an excuse for Gwen - seeing as she still doesn't know."

"Can't we just say that someone needs to stay and keep an eye on the rift?" Lucy shrugged "It's not a complete lie."

"Ianto, you go pack for the trip." Jack ordered, "I need to speak to Lucy about things she needs to do while we're gone"

Ianto nodded and Lucy smiled awkwardly at him, now she had calmed down she couldn't help but feel stupid for how she had panicked earlier. It wasn't like the team was going to fight the Daleks, or the cybermen, or even the Year That Never was that was going to happen next year. These were just humans, simply humans. They shouldn't cause her to panic so much. Out of all of the things that had happened to her since arriving why was it the cannibals who were scaring her?

"What should I know?"  
>"That's not what I wanted to talk to you about." Jack said once he was sure that Ianto had gone. "This is a conversation that is long overdue. How are you Lucy?"<p>

"Apart from feeling embarrassed for just having a panic attack…" She shrugged. "I'm fine."  
>"Lucy just over a month ago, you killed a woman." Jack spoke calmly and Lucy shifted in her seat.<p>

"Like I said Jack, I'm fine. I mean I'm not fine with killing someone, but she was already dead. So I suppose I didn't really kill her." She tried to look everywhere apart from at her boss who was just sitting in his chair waiting for her to say more.

"What do you want me to say?" She asked minutes later to fill the silence that was becoming overwhelming. "I can't get the image out of my head, my hands covered in blood and the blood spurting out of the bullet holes. The one I put in her. God, she was innocent, just delivering pizza for us like normal. And I killed her. Me, Lucy Jones. I'm just a geek Jack, my life was all about staying quiet, looking after my family, watching TV shows and reading books and now I've killed someone. I… I can't sleep. She doesn't leave me alone Jack, I see her everywhere I look, on the streets when I go out. Haven't been able to eat pizza because every time I try I see the pizza boxes on the floor, covered in blood."

"You know you're right." He said, moving so he was no longer sitting behind his desk, instead he moved to lean against the front of his desk "It's not your fault."

"See logically, logically I get that." Lucy nodded. "I can think that but it doesn't stop the dreams."

"Nothing will."

"So what did you want to talk to me about, apart from to tell me that there is nothing that you can do? I know that. I knew that before I even did it. I didn't need to, I could have pretended I didn't know anything to do with Lisa. But I did, I got to know her knowing how it was going to end. Because Ianto was right, before he tried to take her off the machinery she was still human, at least her mind appeared to be human. She was nearly my friend - as much as you can be someone's friend knowing that you're going to have to kill them and you're not sure if they are human. So what was it you wanted to know Jack? What was it you wanted me to tell you?"

"I wanted you to say the truth."

"I shot and killed a being." She shrugged. "Annie might have already been killed by Lisa, but it looked liked she was alive, it felt like she was alive and I killed her. I can't change that, I can't ever forget that but I can try and ignore the small voice in my mind that calls me a murder that says my sister would hate me for it - because she could never understand - how can anyone understand what it feels like."

"I might." Jack offered.

"Really? Because by killing Annie, by letting her die, I made sure that the Cybermen could not return; they might manage it in the future and there is nothing I can do about that. But all I can do right now, when I wake up and her face is the first thing I see, when I can still feel the blood on my hands." She looked down at them again and could see the stain on them, Lucy automatically started wiping them, as though the stain was real and could be removed. "Is to remind myself that right now the world is safe and that only two people died in a cyberman attack. 2 people that I can never forget but only two. So in answer to your earlier question Captain, I'm fine and I will continue to say that until I actually am and I can look at myself in the mirror again and be happy about what I see." She stood up. "Can I go?"

Lucy wasn't asking for permission and they both knew it, but Jack nodded anyway and she walked out and down to the shooting range. But she didn't shoot anything, just sat there and continued to load and empty the gun simply going through the motions to try and focus on something simple instead of her own continually racing thoughts in an effort to get her mind to stay quiet for just a few moments of peace.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Lucy didn't have much to do that weekend while the others were in the countryside, there was a weevil to catch but apart from that she spent time completing her paperwork, playing in the shooting range with a couple of UNIT soldiers, watching the rift and a couple of the lighter Doctor Who episodes. Her phone rang and she scrambled to find it on the mess that she called her desk.

"Jack? Are you ok? You all there?"

"We're fine, although Gwen was shot but she's fine now. Any problems your end?"

"Nope, we've got a new weevil – I'm thinking Bob - but everything else is fine. Damn lucky, managed to corner him and got the spray before he jumped me. Don't worry I did make sure I had UNIT with me. I've put him next to Janet. Are you sure you are ok? What about Ianto how is he?"

"He's fine, a bit beaten up but apart from that he's ok. We're waiting for the police and then we'll be back."

She breathed a sigh of relief, "Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for not forcing me to go."

"It's ok. I understand why you were so scared."

"The whole universe and I will try I really will, but humans? They can be brilliant but he was right, 'the greatest monsters of them all.' 'Why do you kill people? Because it's fun' 'because it makes me happy'" She sighed and rested her head against the wall, closing her eyes in relief that everything was ok. "Make sure it's the real police yeah Jack? Not that you have any reason to believe otherwise but I'm paranoid."

"Yeah. No problem. Someone will call you just before we leave, or at least send you a text."

"I'll be waiting... I'm thinking of renting some stupid comedies and buy insane amounts of sugar for Ianto and I tonight, and I might buy him some alcohol as well – if he's lucky. I can't imagine he's going to want to sleep, unless Owen has some magic non-nightmare medicine, in which case he's in the wrong job. He should be making millions selling it on the market."

Jack laughed.

"I think Owen's lacking in that particular solution. I'm sure Ianto will be glad you are looking after him, hang on," the phone was muffled for a bit before Jack came back, "he says thank you." Lucy couldn't help but smile, relieved that they were all safe.

"Tell him it's no problem." She replied, "I'm just glad he's ok. It looked bad on the screen... are you sure Owen has given him a full going over and hasn't just stayed at Gwen's side?"

Jack sighed, "He's fine."

"I know... still... it's Ianto. Stench of human flesh probably hit close to home..."

"Lucy"

"...And he was completely battered by them when he tried to save Tosh. Jack, he's still on prescription sleeping tablets from Canary Warf, although he should be coming off them soon I think. And damn I shouldn't have told you that but you know what I mean..."

"Lucy"

"I know" She replied forcing herself to calm down, "I need to stop worrying about you all."

"Hang on the police are here so we'll leave in about half an hour or so."

"'K, see you soon. Bye"

"Bye" Her boss replied and hung up, Lucy sighed in relief that everything had gone ok.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: I honestly did try to write Countrycide but Lucy was just in my head going 'nope' 'nope I'm not going an you can't make me'****, which meant this happened instead. Please let me know what you think and I have finally included how Lucy's feeling after having to kill Lisa/Annie.  
><strong>

**See you next week and I hope you all have a very good Christmas**

**Rea**

**P.S If you like my story go check out IceStar663's (she my best mate) story 'Lost Through Time', it's the same idea except in the Doctor Who world. Hanna turns up in the Asylum of the Daleks. I can promise you as someone whose read everything that she's written on this story and helped her plan things it's well worth a read.**


	14. Chapter 14 - Random Shoes

**MERRY CHRISTMAS!**

**(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) 17th November (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)**

The second Owen said she was fine to go Lucy jumped off the bed in the medbay. "For the record Owen you don't need to stab me so hard to get my blood. Have you found anything interesting yet?"

"Do you actually care?"

"Be nice to know." She shrugged, "I'm tortured every month for this after all.

"Everyone has a medical once a month." Owen said as he pulled off his gloves and washed his hands. "It's not just you, you're not that special."

"No, but you always keep me for longer. I swear my file is bigger than the others."  
>"Well when you first you here you were malnourished, with not much muscle and weak bones. Plus I'm running tests on your blood which is why I take a sample each month. But yes I keep you here longer to make sure that you are improving at a steady rate from life before Torchwood." He was careful not to use the term abuse, as he knew it wouldn't go down well with his colleague, even though he was 99% certain that was the case.<p>

"Am I?" Lucy couldn't help but ask.

"You're no longer underweight and you have muscle. So yes I would say you've improved. But in answer to your original question it looks like the base code of the two universes are different, they split off from each other before life was properly formed probably. Which is another reason why I need to keep your blood stocked in such large amounts, no one in the universe is a suitable blood donor, you are completely unique. So if anything happens to you I need your blood in supply." He opened a cuboard. "Look your blood!" Lucy stared at the cold blood and then back at him before deciding not to mention just how weird that felt.

"So I'm a freak."  
>"You're... completely unique." Owen replied trying to find the right words.<br>"Tomato, tomarto." Lucy said with a shrug. "Can I go and have you got any idea what Gwen is actually working on?"  
>"Yes you can go and I think she's trying to find out what happened to the kid who was always following us around - she thinks he may have had an artefact of some sort. Personally I think he was just a geek who got unlucky and she's trying to appease that bleeding heart of hers. Now piss off."<br>"Gladly." Lucy replied with a smirk, trying to work out if she should tell Jack or not that they were currently living an episode. It was hardly like 'Random Shoes' was in anyway important and she couldn't really remember anything about it, apart from the fact that the kid was a ghost following Gwen. It was because she was thinking about other things that she hadn't notices that her phone had fallen out of her pocket when she jumped off the bed.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

It was only after she got an orange alert in the shooting range and she went up to Jack's office that she found out. Owen was standing in front of Jack's desk looking angry and holding Lucy's phone.

"What's wrong?" Lucy asked confused, although she didn't like this episode - and was yet to tell Jack that it was an episode - she thought she would have remembered if something important happened

"You left your phone in the medbay." Owen said angrily, Jack just looked resigned to the idea that an argument was going to start.

"Err... sorry. I hadn't realised."

"You had a phone call." He continued and Lucy was confused for a second as she tried to work out who was calling her, her list of contacts was hardly long. It was when she realised who the phone call must have been from that she also realised why Owen was so angry.

"Ahhh."  
>"When were you going to say that you didn't retcon Carys?"<p>

"I asked Jack, he said it was ok and that she was my responsibility. What's wrong?" Lucy looked at them confusion written all over her face. "Jack, you know about Carys I asked for your permission. What's this about?"

"I also remember saying that she was your responsibility and not to let anyone else find out."  
>"It's not my fault that Owen answered my phone." Lucy argued, "I hardly meant to leave it in the medbay. It was an accident."<br>"Why wasn't she retconned anyway?" Owen asked, "What about her was so fucking special?"  
>"We know that memories and other sparks of thought can break through the retcon." Lucy said with a sigh as Jack gestured that it was up to her to explain to the angry Londoner why she had broken the secrecy. "Gwen proved that was possible and she only saw a drawing of a knife which Suzie was holding for less than half a minute. She might be in the minority, is certainly in the minority who can break it that easily, but it is entirely possible that with strong enough memories and a strong enough reminder that it can be broken by anyone." Lucy was getting less defensive as she explained her reasoning and started pacing up and down, since it had happened and she had become friendly with the young woman she was more and more certain she had made the right choice. "Carys was trapped in her own body, she was fighting for control while an alien used it to kill through sex. Giving her Retcon is like using a band aid over a gaping wound, it would remove the memories but might not remove the emotions attached to them. And even if it does, what happens the next time she has sex? A link that strong will almost certainly break it, and then we'll have a petrified emotionally vulnerable woman walking the streets of Cardiff with knowledge of Torchwood. She won't be able to talk to anyone about it, they'll lock her up."<br>"So you decided not to Retcon her." Owen concluded, feeling less angry now he had heard the train of thoughts which had ended in the breaking of protocol. "It wasn't because you felt guilty about not being about to change anything or because of your future knowledge?"  
>"No!" Lucy replied emphatically, shaking her head. "I honestly thought it would be the best thing for her. I can't do much but I'm here on the other side of the phone willing to listen when she needs it."<br>"Ok?" Jack asked Owen, "all sorted now. Happy that Lucy isn't abusing her position?"  
>"Yeah." Owen agreed as he passed Lucy back her phone. "It was the secret more than anything else."<br>"Great, now piss of the pair of you. Gwen seems to be hovering outside my office for something. Lucy, any help?"  
>"If it's what I think it is, I know pretty much bugger all apart from the fact we've currently got a ghost. It's a really dull filler episode designed to show off Gwen's 'humanity'"<p>

"Her bloody bleeding heart you mean." Owen scoffed.

"That too." Lucy agreed, Jack just pointed at the door and the pair of them left, leaving it open for Gwen to go in after them.

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"Eugene _ate_ an alien eye?" Tosh said in surprise.

"The geek actually had something of use?" Owen was more surprised that their stalker wasn't completely insane when he said that he had an alien artefact that they would want to look at.

"From what Gwen said it was a Dogon Sixth Eye" Jack explained, "it's what causes their species to look into the past and understand their lives properly."  
>"And he ate it..."<p>

"Yup.

"What does that mean for Eugene?" Tosh was curious, if this thing allowed you to understand your past and he had eaten it just before he died, something must have happened.

"It means a dull Gwen centric filler episode as she tried to work out what happened to Eugene and look more into his life as he watched and followed her as a ghost." Lucy explained. "Honestly I pretty much forgot all about it until it actually happened. And because nothing actually happens I didn't bring it up."

"Fair enough" Owen shrugged. "I'm not sure if it's something I would want to watch more than once."  
>"The only reason I've ever seen it more than once is because I'm a completionist when it comes to box setting shows."<p>

"See I get that, but there are some that are so bad that you can just jump over."  
>"But then it's not watching the whole series."<p>

"Anyway, getting back on track." Jack said, drawing the attention away from the conversation between Owen and Lucy. Gwen's gone to the funeral and is going to pick up the eye after and maybe pop in on the wake. I said I'll go pick her up after and go on the routine weevil search, any of you coming?"  
>"While that sounds fascinating I think I've got a prior engagement to put needles in my eyes." Owen replied sarcastically, all the others quickly begged off as well. Weevil hunts were never fun when you knew where they were, when you were just checking to make sure none had escaped or were in any of the usual areas it was even worse. To the point that a weekly rota had been devised for who was doing that particular chore, Jack wasn't impressed but understood why they weren't interested - it wasn't something he enjoyed doing much either but it was something that was needed.<p>

"Lucy, anything interesting soon?" He asked

"Uhmm... there's five episodes left this series I think, maybe six. This one's the only filler."  
>"So at least five big(ish) things happening in the next couple of months."<br>"Yeah." She pulled a face. "Sorry."  
>"Don't be, at least you can give us some warning. Right;" he threw his coat on and started issuing orders for the rest of the evening "Ianto prep the archives for the Dogon Eye, Tosh I want progress on that translation for tomorrow morning; Owen can you put together what you've learnt about Janet into a legible file instead of just your notes? Lucy I need the finance for the month sorted and can you get on the phone to Parker and see if he'll let us at least look at what he's got so we can take any of the really dangerous things away. I'll see you all tomorrow morning."<p>

**(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)**

**A/N: So I'm hoping you're all looking forward to a christmas surrounded by the people you love. I thought I'd give you a present and give you an extra chapter. I'm sorry it's such a filler but I had nothing I could possibly do with this episode. I'm not a big fan of what I ended up writing either, so sorry that your christmas present is a naff chapter.**

**But *shrugs* there you go, it's better than this being the weekly update surely, waiting all week and getting this?  
>I'll see you again tomorrow when I'm going to change things a bit and instead of the next episode (They Keep Killing Suzie) I'm jumping a bit to 1.11 - Out of Time, I'll go back to Suzie later but I need something to happen first.<strong>

**Also I have got a Christmas episode which you'll get in the new year.**

**Please review, I know I'm on loads of alert/favourites lists and it would be a great christmas present to get a bunch of reviews. Even if it's not the best chapter. But I promise Out Of Time tomorrow is better.**

**Merry Christmas.**

**Rea**

**P.S I've edited old chapters and added the dates that it happens on. They don't mean much but it does show the passing of time between 'incidents' quite well.**


	15. Chapter 15 - Out of Time, Part 1

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) 18th December (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

Lucy stood with Owen, Gwen and Jack on the small runway at Cardiff airport, it was a week and a half before Christmas and they had all conceded that their Christmas was not going to be normal; even though they had time off, the job came first. They were however grateful that this wasn't an enemy they had to fight against, it was simply a spike in the rift that they needed to check out.

Things became more complicated when a plane appeared in the sky asking for permission to land. All Lucy could remember about this story was the fact that it existed and the fate of the individuals that had flown through the rift and that would never be returning.

Jack looked surprised when he first saw the old fashioned plane in the air and he seemed to realise straight away what had happened, he glanced over at Lucy who nodded - both to tell him that he was correct and that she knew what was going to happen. He was getting more and more annoyed with her refusal to tell Gwen the truth but didn't say anything; he had given her a deadline of the 4th May and knew that she would find some way to tell Gwen by then, if not he would do it himself.

"We stay and we help them anyway we can." Jack ordered and they all agreed. It was their job to deal with everything that came through the rift, hostile or not. He interrupted the radio feed and agreed with the pilot when she once more asked for permission to land.

The plane stayed in the air for a few more minutes before coming down to land, a female pilot opened the window and waved at them.

"Hello there." She said before jumping out, an older man and young woman started to slowly get out as well, obviously not as used to climbing in and out of planes. "Apologies for the unplanned touchdown, just hit some rotten turbulence."

"Captain Jack Harkness." Jack said offering his hand

"Diane Holmes, pilot" Diane replied as she shook his hand.

"This is Dr Own Harper, Lucy Smith and Gwen Cooper." Jack said pointing to his team.

"This some sort of secret base?" Diane asked after smiling at each of them, "You must show me around one day Captain, you certainly look the part. How many guns does Miss Smith have on her?"

"Two and a stun gun." Lucy replied immediately, "There was a bit of a scuffle earlier." An hour or so before they had turned up at the airport they had been dealing with a bunch of weevils who had escaped from the sewers, it was the only reason why Ianto and Tosh had not come out to the air field with them, they were busy tidying up.

"I'm not completely sure I actually wanted an answer to my question." Diane replied, looking shocked, "Although you are furthering my belief in a secret base."

"Everything alright?" The older man asked as he walked over after helping a younger girl out of the plane.

"How long before we head off again?" The young woman asked, she looked to be a year couple of years younger than Lucy, about 18 or 19. "My uncle is expecting me."  
>"When did you leave?" Jack asked<p>

"About half an hour ago." Diane said

"Which date?"

"Today, December the 18th."  
>"Which year?" The three strangers looked at each other confused, not sure if Jack was joking or not. "Which year?" Jack pressed, "I need to know."<p>

"1953"

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

"Who are you people?" Diane asked as the cog door opened and they walked into the hub, Owen walked ahead and pulled on his white lab coat.

"The less you know about us the better, meet the rest of the team."

"Toshiko" Tosh said

"Ianto" Ianto introduced himself with a small smile.

"John Ellis"

"Emma Louise Cowell."  
>"Diane Holmes"<p>

"Please, follow me." Owen said with no trace of his normal sarcasm. The three strangers walked through the hub, following Owen to the conference room.  
>"At least it wasn't a space ship full of aliens." Gwen said optimistically.<p>

"That might have been better." Jack replied

"It would have put more of a damper on our Christmas though." Lucy pointed out, "Three people we can help is better than aliens we need to fight, I do actually want to reach Christmas day and open some presents. Even though Ianto refused to get a proper Christmas tree and we've only got a small fake one sitting on the sideboard."

"What's wrong with a proper tree?" Jack asked as they started to walk up to the conference room as well.

"Nothing." Lucy replied, "We've had this argument before but he says he doesn't want to have to deal with it and the pine needles getting into the carpet, especially since we'll be busy in work and not actually have time to enjoy it."  
>"I've given you the week between Christmas and New Year off, end of the world or alien invasion providing and a couple of days either side. You're just on call at home instead of coming in." Jack pointed out.<p>

"I know and we could put a sheet down underneath the tree to collect the needles but that's apparently beside the point." Lucy said rolling her eyes, "What about you Gwen?" She asked "Got a real tree?" She didn't really care and they all knew it; but she was trying to be nice and they were all aware of that as well.

"We've not got one yet but we will, Rhys and I both grew up with getting proper trees." Gwen replied "It doesn't feel like Christmas without them..."

"Are you talking about Christmas trees?" Ianto asked as they walked into the room.

"Yeah" Lucy replied, "and even Gwen agrees that it's not Christmas without a proper tree. We're actually in agreement about a subject, surely that gives my argument more weight. Gwen and I are on the same side, which means you are in the wrong."

"We've had this argument before, it's just not worth the hassle."

"Can you stop talking about Christmas trees and explain what has happened!" John said loudly and the team were reminded that although this was normal for them, it wasn't for everyone and therefore being able to have a normal conversation while something like this was happening would make it look as though they didn't care.

"Sorry." Jack said sincerely. "I tried to explain things to you in the SUV."

"But how can you travel 50 years in half an hour?" John asked, he clearly hadn't believed them. They could all understand why, it was a difficult thing to ask anyone to believe; every member of Torchwood had struggled with the concept when they first joined the team.

"Your aircraft slipped through a transcendental portal" Jack replied and Lucy rolled her eyes at Jack's insistence in using technical terms when explaining to people, he thought that it made them sound more knowledgeable. Lucy was of the belief that if made them sound like annoying twats who should be punched because they weren't actually explaining anything.

"A what?" Emma asked, and Lucy counted that as a victory for 'speak-in-proper-English'.

"You flew through a doorway in time." She explained, "It was probably the turbulence that you complained about earlier."

"It's some kind of trick, it has to be." John said, not able to believe what had happened. Lucy could understand why he didn't want to believe it, but there was a point where seeing had to be believing and John could see that things were different to what he was used to; the clothes they were all wearing for one thing as well as the technology that had surrounded them while they were driving from the airport.

"Tosh?" Jack said looking at their technician. Tosh coughed uncomfortably and Gwen started putting down photos on the table while the screen showed photos as well.

"Celebrations of the Millennium in your respective home cities. Photographs documenting the development of Cardiff Bay from the '50s to the present day. Blueprints of modern day aeroplanes."

Emma sat down in shock and Lucy could see she was the first one to not only believe what had happened but to realise the implications of it.

"But if all this is true," Diane asked, "then how do we get back?"

"You don't." Jack said simply and seriously, Lucy didn't envy him but her respect continued to grow; Jack was a good man and a good leader, no matter his past life before the Doctor. "According to history, your plane never returned. I'm sorry."

"What's going to happen to us?" Diane asked

"Never mind about us." John said. "What happened to everyone else? Our families"

"We're going to do our best to find out." Lucy promised them automatically, this case hit too close to home, all she could remember was how it felt to learn that she would never see her sister again, that she was stuck here. Jack gave her an odd look but nodded.

"Give us half an hour and we'll find as much as we can. Meanwhile would you mind going with Owen so he can give you a quick medical? We want to get you into the system as quickly as possible."

The three of them looked as though their world had fallen away beneath them and Lucy felt her heart go out to them, she had remembered how they each handled the situation and knew that there really was nothing she could do to help apart from listen when they needed it. Owen left the conference room and walked down to the autopsy/medical area and John guided the two women after him - they were in still in shock but John had automatically taken on the role of the parent and was obviously trying to push his emotions to the side to deal with at a later point.

"What do we do with three people who are lost? This time it's not monsters" Jack said as they all sat in the conference room watching Owen set the screen up and their guests reactions to the technology.

"We help them." Lucy said simply looking back up at Jack and taking her eyes off said lost people. "You helped me, and I was more lost than them, I lost my universe. Let me talk to them." Jack nodded but the others didn't seem as sure. Gwen just looked shocked and Lucy suddenly realised that she had 'outed' herself to the Welshwoman but right now was not the time to be worrying about it "I'm not saying Jack gives them a job in Torchwood, but I'm saying we give them what they need to set up a new life and to be happy. We give them an ear that will listen to their worries and their complaints without thinking them stupid. We owe it to them to give them that, if we are in charge of the rift then we are responsible for everything and not just the monsters."

"Ok" Jack stopped her before she could continue. "We do everything we can to help them. Lucy you need to speak to them, let them know your story."

"Not a problem."

"Tosh, you need to make them exist. Put back stories out there, people who lived next door, that kind of thing. Ianto you help her, see if you can lay an actual paper trail as well as an electronic one."

"No problem"

"Gwen, you work with Lucy in getting them settled in. I know you've got loads of questions you want to ask but now really isn't the time to do it, wait until it's quieter. You two take the two girls and I'll focus on John. But first we need to find out what happened to the people they loved, I want as much as we can find in the next half hour."

"No problem."

And with that they all left the room to get to their jobs.

"Hi" Lucy smiled at the time displaced people who all looked confused and scared. "So we're going to help you in every way we can. And although the others can't relate to you I can."

"Are you from another time as well?" Emma asked.

"Another universe." Lucy replied, "I was just walking around Cardiff in my world and I ended up here, I'm in the pages of a storybook but everything is slightly different. I've changed things that I didn't know I could and I've had to watch things happen that I wanted to stop. But I lost my whole world, I lost my mother and my younger sister – Becky she's 9 and means the world to me, but her birthday this year is liekly the last one I'll ever see." She smiled sadly, although she didn't look at Ianto who was trying to catch her eye. The others all looked at each other surprised by this piece of knowledge, Lucy rarely gave anything out about her home life and they had known her for seven months now and she was telling people she hadn't even known for a couple of hours. "The point is I know what it feels like to lose everything. In this world my parents never met so I don't exist and neither does Becky. I tried to find my parents, to see if they were better off without us but it didn't matter because they weren't really my parents. Just people with their faces and names."

"But my son might still be alive. And he's still my son." John argued and Lucy could see that she wasn't getting through to him, he was determined to be stubborn and try and find links where they no longer existed.

"I know that it's not completely the same, but what I'm saying is I know how important finding any link to home can be and how when you find it you just want to hold on and never let go. You do need to hold on to that, but at some point you need to live in the world you find yourself in and not in the past – literally in your case. Don't forget them, but remember them fondly. If this had happened to Becky I can promise you I would be telling her to go see the world and do everything she possibly could and not to hold back because of me. The world you've found yourself in can be horrible and life is more fast paced and some social etiquettes that you're used to have gone. But you get moments of beauty. You can get to the other side of the world in a day, all the sights of the world that you have dreamed about are at your finger tips; go find them. And go find them with laughing memories of family. Stand in Australia and remember the way a friend would laugh, or a family member, the way their face would change when they smiled. Times that you thought you would die because you were laughing too hard. We can't control what brought you here, we only clean up after it. But we can give you lives, we can help you get settled into this world, help you find out where you belong. And then at the end of the day when the world scares you we can be someone you come back to, someone you shout and scream at because you want your family more than anything else in the world and time has ripped you away from then. And after you've shouted and screamed and thrown things at walls and destroyed all our paperwork, we'll smile and help you back up again. Life is for living so we are going to help you go out there and live it, every day at a time. I promise you that."

She could see her impromptu speech had gotten through to the two girls although she wasn't sure about John. She only hoped she could change his fate although she knew it was unlikely and that the best she could do was to make his time here a slightly happier one. She could understand the pain he was going through and knew that there was nothing to stop it.

Lucy suddenly realised that everyone was staring at her and she tried not to blush.

"Well I'll help you. Owen will just grumble and get you pissed. So..." She shuffled uncomfortably on the spot, before looking up at Jack pleading for help. Thinking she had been embarrassed enough and that Gwen had finally find out Lucy's secret Jack spoke up and continued for her.

"What she means is that we'll all help in any way we can. Now we've got medical records for you and Owen has updated any information with the results from his medical we're going to get you set up in a hostel for a couple of nights until we can get you a flatshare or something, whatever you want."

"I had my own shop and a house!" John was not impressed, "And now you tell me I'm going into a home of some kind and you'll get me a flatshare."

"What are we supposed to do?" Jack asked calmly, with a sinking feeling as he realised what the answer was going to be.

"Get me back home with my family."

"We can't. You died."

"But we're not dead." Emma said confused, "and if it was some kind of window can't we just go back the other way?"

"It doesn't work like that." Tosh said, "for a start we've only got a rough guess where the window actually was, although I could try to use technology to pinpoint it. But even if we know the exact point in space the rift blip occurred it doesn't mean that it will occur then or that it will send you back to the same time. It's almost completely unknown."  
>"We just take care of the shitty aftermath." Owen grumbled, "the actual event is alien to us." Jack gave him a 'look' for his sarcasm but shrugged in agreement.<p>

"We thought maybe you'd like to go shopping for clothes and food? Ianto and Lucy could take you, give you some time to get to know what Cardiff is like now and how the world has changed and also to let you talk to them if you need to. Plus Ianto needs to buy some more coffee, we're running low."  
>Ianto raised an eyebrow in disappointment and annoyance at Jack for volunteering him for the job.<br>"I think we've got enough left for 5 mugs worth, sir." He replied "Someone will just have to go without."

"Now _that's_ harassment." Jack joked before turning serious, "But if you two could actually take them out."

"Sure." Ianto shrugged, "It's my job to clean up after the rift after all. Lucy?"

"I'm in." Lucy nodded, "If we go to the big Asda they should be able to get everything."

"Tosh, if you can find somewhere for them to stay while they are out shopping, that way Ianto can take them straight there once they are done."

"No problem." Tosh left the conference room and went straight back to her desk, immediately getting on with what had been asked of her.

"Is that all we are now?" John asked angrily, "A job? A mess to clean up after?"

"Not at all." Jack said, still trying to be as calming as possible. "It is simply us trying to do our jobs in making sure that this goes as smoothly as possible."

"What's Asda?" Emma asked

"It's a big chain supermarket." Lucy replied, "It sells clothes and food and bits of everything, that way you'll have more than your suitcase."

"Jack!" Tosh called, "I've got two rooms for them sorted. Managed to get somewhere on first go."  
>"Tosh you're a star." Jack replied, "Change of plan, we'll find out the basics of what happened to your family, get you sorted in the hostel and then we'll take you shopping tomorrow; once you've had some sleep and got a bit more used to the idea."<p>

"I'm not sure I'll ever be used to it." John muttered.

"It'll be one hell of an adventure." Diane said with a sigh. Emma looked at Lucy for a bit.

"You come from a different universe, really?"  
>"Really really." Lucy replied "and a couple of years in the future, so the technology is roughly the same. It's not quite what you are going through but similar."<p>

"How long did it take you to get used to it?"

"I'm still trying. Most days it's fine, but there are some where it's not and it takes all my energy to just get out of bed, or there are others where all I can do is look at where I am in wonder."

The team split up as they started the basic research on the families of the lost souls that had ended up in their care. Jack had John, Owen obviously had his eyes on Diane and Gwen was determined to look after Emma. Lucy, Tosh and Ianto were stuck doing the research and although it wasn't Lucy's speciality it was still interesting and as it was all a matter of looking at public record she didn't need to use any of Tosh's 'cheat sheets' either.

An hour or so later and they were moving the group into the hostel; Tosh had stayed at the hub to start work on forging their identities and Ianto had also stayed to help and to tidy up the day as well as continue with his normal duties.

Lucy and Gwen led Diane and Emma to their room, while Jack took John to his.

"We know that you don't know each other but thought you might want to stay with a familiar face who knows what you are going through." Lucy explained.

"Fine by me." Diane shrugged, Emma seemed to lighten up at the idea of not being completely alone.

Gwen opened the door, "It's a bit basic." She said slightly apologetically  
>"Not when you've lived in barracks." Diane replied with a smile as she put her bag on the lower bunk bed allowing Emma to take the normal bed. "I'm going to freshen up, I'll leave you to it."<p>

"I was going to unpack." Emma said, "Which wardrobe do you want?"  
>"I don't mind." Diane shrugged, and walked out of the room and down the corridor to the bathroom.<p>

Emma started unpacking the suitcase, it had a couple of dresses, a teddy, a wash bag, and a wrapped present. Lucy couldn't help but remember the bag that had travelled with her; an ipod, loads of DVDs, some posters, t-shirts and a book. Emma may be more out of her time but she was better prepared than Lucy had been.

"Who else is here?" Emma asked

"A couple of young girls." Gwen replied, "Nice dress." She said as Emma found a coat hanger to put it away with.  
>"Thank you. I made it myself."<p>

"Where are you from?"

"Bristol."

"What were you going to Dublin for?" Lucy asked pulling herself out of her thoughts and joining in the conversation again.

"Auntie Nora's ill and Uncle Finn can't manage the children. It'll be good practice for when I have children of my own mum says."

Lucy caught Gwen's eye and they both pulled a small face at the idea of 'having' to have children by a certain age, but the equally both silently agreed not to mention it. Emma walked back over to her suitcase and pulled the teddy bear close to her chest, the bell around its neck rang slightly. "She's gone next door so Uncle Finn can telephone." Emma continued "She'll know I'm missing by now."

"Emma, she found out in 1953" Gwen said softly. "Over 50 years have passed, remember?." Lucy winced and decided to soften the blow slightly.

"But apart from that you're right. Relatively speaking they'll know you're missing by now. But you can't live your life like that."

Emma sat down on the bed and both Torchwood agents could see tears in her eyes.

"What will she think happened?" Lucy stayed leaning against the wall but Gwen moved from against the bunk bed to sit next to Emma, "It must have been like one of those murders where they never found the body."

"The seemed to think the plane went down in the sea." Emma started crying and Gwen pulled her into a hug.

Lucy knew it was pathetic but she felt she had to say something.

"It will get better, Emma. I promise. And at least you've got your teddy to hug. Mine's in a different world. I was out shopping and sightseeing when I was taken by the rift. I had pretty much nothing of use on me at all." Emma sobbed a bit more before eventually lifting her head and gave Lucy a small smile.

"You mean I'm lucky?"

"In regards to clothes and things to bring I'm saying you were _luckier."_ Lucy amended, "Nothing about either one of our situations can be called lucky."

(*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*) (*_*)

**A/N: So Gwen's finally found out! This seemed the perfect time for it to happen. Hope you all had a good Christmas and I'll see you again in the New Year**

**Rea**

**P.S. Reviews make me happy and it is Christmas... *puppy dog eyes***


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